


Three Hearts to Own

by ChasingtheCosmos



Series: A Hand to Hold [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Doctor POV, Episode Fix-It: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, Season Re-Write, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Touch Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21834511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasingtheCosmos/pseuds/ChasingtheCosmos
Summary: "Life without Rose was surprisingly simple - or perhaps simple wasn't the right word. Maybe numb non-acceptance would be a more apt description."A (sort of) season re-write centering around the Doctor's touch telepathy and the many ways that it makes his life difficult while he attempts to move on from the loss of Rose Tyler.This work is based around Seasons 3 & 4 and the Tenth Doctor.  It's the final entry in the "A Hand to Hold" series, but it can also be read as a stand-alone.The first half of the story will just be short excerpts from the Doctor's time away from Rose, but there will be a Journey's End fix-it and a happily ever after at the end.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Series: A Hand to Hold [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531793
Comments: 33
Kudos: 158





	1. Martha (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ ](https://ibb.co/qsdvWYW)

\--------- The Runaway Bride ----------

Life without Rose was surprisingly simple - or perhaps simple wasn't the right word. Maybe numb non-acceptance would be a more apt description.

The Doctor had exactly thirty-six seconds to wallow in silent self-pity before a new glorious, much-needed distraction came in the form of a feisty red-headed human dressed in a long, white wedding dress. She introduced herself as Donna, and even though she asked far too many questions about the Doctor's recent, crushing loss, he was surprised to find that he quite enjoyed her company. Even when she was yelling at him and calling him rude names, it was better than the overwhelming silence that had reigned inside of the Doctor's head for those first agonizing thirty-six seconds.

Having a new partner at his side who looked and acted nothing at all like Rose was a strange new shift, but one that he welcomed nonetheless. The Doctor didn't think he could go back to being alone the way that he had been before Rose - that road was madness. But if he was going to start chaperoning companions again, then he knew that he needed a change - someone who wouldn't constantly be reminding him of the woman who he had loved and lost.

He found that he was being more cautious than ever as he carefully put up every mental shield that he could possibly think of before he took Donna's hand in his and slipped the bio-damper onto her finger in an attempt to keep her safe. He had never before wished so desperately that his species _wasn't_ so telepathically enabled. The Doctor refused to risk even the slightest bit of connection with another sentient being right now - not when his own mind and hearts were still so shattered and aching.

He felt an overwhelming amount of sympathy for the brash, over-confident Donna when she suddenly discovered that her picturesque, idyllic wedding was nothing more than a ruse - an attempt to use her for the nefarious purpose of yet another alien invasion. The Doctor knew that he should have felt more remorse for drowning the Empress of the Racnoss and her children and putting an end to an entire species - however sinister they might have been - but as he stood over the empty ravine left behind by the river Thames, he couldn't quite seem to make himself feel anything more than that same grim, numb purpose that was quickly solidifying around his hearts and erasing all of that gray moral space that he had been operating in for centuries.

He took Donna back home afterwards, but he couldn't force himself to leave without asking first - without at least extending the offer for her to run away from her life and to help keep him distracted for just a little bit longer. She refused, just as she should have, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt twice as much when the Doctor returned back to his empty TARDIS alone.

She offered him Christmas dinner before he left, but the Doctor knew immediately that such a request was completely outside of the question. There were simply too many memories - too many reminders of pink cracker crowns and holding hands in the snow and Christmas dinner with the family that he would never be able to visit again.

So instead, he did the one thing that Donna refused to do - he ran, and he didn't once look back.

\---------- Smith and Jones ----------

After that, the Doctor's life quickly unraveled into a meaningless, colorless blur. He smiled because it was easier than crying. He made jokes with the individuals who he crossed paths with because it was kinder than yelling at them. He saved innocent people from evil because it was the right thing to do - but all the while he felt nothing but a numb, burning ache in all of the places that he knew that Rose should be occupying.

Thankfully, a new distraction came to him in the form of a young woman named Martha Jones. The Doctor liked her almost immediately - she was kind and clever and kept up with him as easily as though she had been doing it all her life. The two of them fell quickly into an easy rhythm with one another - a fact that both concerned and excited the Doctor.

Martha made him believe that maybe finding a replacement for Rose wouldn't be such a hopeless endeavor after all. She made him think that maybe he didn't have to be alone anymore. She gave him hope that maybe he could finally move on and leave his dreams of pink and yellow behind ...

He could feel Martha's interest in him when he went against his better judgement and kissed her in order to get the genetic transfer that he needed in order to save the innocent lives of all of the people that the judoon had transported to the moon. Even with all of his mental barriers up in an attempt to shield his telepathic abilities as much as possible, her sharp spike of attraction and desire hummed against the sensitive skin of the Doctor's lips and quickly reminded him that there were other options - he didn't have to be heartbroken and alone forever if he didn't want to. There were plenty of other women out there in the universe who were no doubt just as clever and brilliant and beautiful as his Rose.

However, the Doctor didn't _want_ any of those other women - he only wanted the one, and she was trapped away in a universe that he couldn't ever reach.

The Doctor still went back for Martha, though. Even after the world was safe again and she had returned back to her family and her normal life, the Doctor still couldn't leave well enough alone - instead deciding to show off with cheap tricks and slight-of-hand in order to entice her into his old time ship. Unlike with Donna, it was an offer that Martha couldn't refuse, and he knew without her having to tell him that she was coming along.

"Where is everyone?" she asked suspiciously as she finally stepped aboard the TARDIS and glanced around at the expansive console room with wide, shocked eyes.

"Just me," the Doctor stated plainly, already setting their destination for some place that he thought she might enjoy. He didn't give her a choice for her first trip like he had with Rose. He couldn't risk Martha choosing some place that held too many painful memories.

"All on your own?" she insisted curiously.

"Well, sometimes I have ... _guests_ \- I mean, some _friends_ , traveling alongside me," he explained haltingly, hating the way that his mouth still seemed to have a tendency to run away without his conscious permission. "I had ... It was recently ... a friend of mine. Rose, her name was - Rose. And ... we were together ..." Her name on his lips after so long without her was like a balm to his wounded hearts that both stung and soothed him at the same time.

"Where is she now?" Martha asked quietly, her dark eyes seeming to see straight through him.

"With her family, happy. She's fine," the Doctor muttered dismissively, forcing himself to meet her gaze so that he could prove to her (and, more importantly, to himself) that he wasn't lying. "Not that you're replacing her!" he added quickly, pointing a condemning finger in the young woman's face instead of directing the blame at himself where it really belonged.

"Never said I was," Martha replied with a small, teasing smile.

"Just one trip, to say thanks!" the Doctor continued insistently. "You get _one_ trip, then back home! I'd rather be on my own."

Martha's smile faded as she watched him, and the Doctor suspected that he wasn't fooling either of them with his bitter, desperate lie. Thankfully, all of time and space was at their disposal, and he was able to dodge the rest of her flirtatious banter as he always did by busying himself with the TARDIS controls.

Still, the Doctor couldn't seem to shake the feeling that he was making a very big mistake in bringing Martha aboard - but he also couldn't deny the fact that he was tired of being alone, and he ran headlong into the bad decision anyway. He simply had to trust that he would be able to find some way to work everything out before it all fell apart around him.

\---------- The Shakespeare Code ----------

Meeting Shakespeare was a laugh, and even running into the carrionites was exciting, but spending the night in a medieval inn with Martha ended up being the most dangerous part of their first trip out in the TARDIS. The bed that they had to share was small, and the Doctor turned towards her to stare deep into Martha's eyes as though he could somehow will her into being the blonde-haired, brown-eyed face that he most longed to see. He barely dared to blink as he stared hard at Martha's features in fear that if he closed his eyes for even a second, his own imagination and traitorous hearts would take over and convince him that the longing that he felt burning against his skin was coming from a different woman.

Later on, the Doctor was forced to lower his mental shields so that he could communicate telepathically with the architect of the Globe Theatre in order to find answers about what was going on, but that left him weak and vulnerable when one of the carrionite sisters suddenly descended upon them and began to use her words to devastating effect.

"The naming won't work on me," the Doctor warned the woman dangerously as she smirked down at him with an air of cool confidence.

"But your heart grows cold," she murmured in mock sympathy. "The north wind blows and carries down the distant ... _Rose_."

The name stung, just as the carrionite had intended it to, but instead of further wounding the Doctor, it only managed to fill him with a deep, burning rage.

He ended up being as merciless with the carrionites as he had been with the racnoss - sending them all back into their strange crystal ball where they could scream and rage into eternity with no hope of ever being released. The Doctor had once described himself as a man of "no second chances". He found that without Rose there to hold him to a better standard, he was certainly living up to the description.

\---------- Gridlock ----------

They went to New Earth next because the Doctor was an old, weak fool and he thought that maybe he just might be able to hold on to Rose by visiting the places where they had traveled to before. He was wrong, of course - not only did he and Martha end up landing in the middle of a planet-wide bio-disaster, but when they finally did manage to make it up to the city, the clear sky and the smell of apple grass did nothing but sting the Doctor's already bruised and battered hearts.

Martha made him explain, of course, once it was all said and done. She was good at that - making him answer for himself. The Doctor thought that it was probably a good thing, but at the moment, he was too hurt to acknowledge the healing process.

"But what did he mean, the Face of Boe - 'you're not alone'?" Martha asked quietly.

The Doctor tried to dodge the question, but Martha really was too clever for her own good. "I lied to you," he finally admitted quietly, hating the way that his empty tone rang off of the dirty walls of the surrounding slums, "because I liked it. I could pretend. Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath a burnt orange sky. I'm not just a Time Lord - I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong, there's no one else."

Rose had asked him once if he was sure. Martha only wanted to know what had happened. The Doctor forced himself to tell her - to relive the memories, both good and bad - in grim repentance of all that he had done. The old images of Gallifrey in his mind still burned like they always did, but there was a new empty ache in the place where his people were meant to be - an ache that only the presence of a bondmate could ever soothe. The Doctor didn't tell Martha about that part, though - he just let it sit and fester for another day. After all, it was the least of what he deserved.

\---------- Daleks in Manhattan & Evolution of the Daleks ----------

He took her to New York next - the proper, Earth one this time, though the TARDIS happened to land them a few decades shy of the present. The longer he carted Martha around, the harder it was getting for the Doctor to ignore the blatant way that she looked at him, and for the first time in his many lives, he was almost ironically grateful for the distraction of a dalek invasion that wedged its way between them.

However, it was the first time that the Doctor had seen the elusive Cult of Skaro since the Battle of Canary Wharf, and their sudden reappearance now did nothing to ease his troubled mind.

Leaving Tallulah and Lazlow behind in a turbulent time and place where even half-human hybrids could live out their lives and go largely unnoticed _did_ spark something in the Doctor, though ... It was an idea, as crazy and impossible as the strange couple themselves.

He wondered curiously if they really could do it - could they live a life of contentment together despite their many trials and differences? Could they really make a happily ever after out of the strange cards that the universe had dealt them?

The love that the Doctor saw in their eyes gave him a surprising amount of hope - another thing that he hadn't encountered since Canary Wharf - and when he and Martha eventually stepped back onto the TARDIS again, he continued his current trend and didn't give her any input at all as he determinedly set their destination towards modern-day London to take her home.

\---------- The Lazarus Experiment ----------

"Where are we?" Martha asked as soon as they'd landed, glancing up at him with that eager, expectant look that he had come to recognize from many of his companions over the centuries.

"The end of the line," the Doctor answered cryptically, giving her nothing more than a pointed look as he waited for her to take the initiative to open the doors and see for herself.

Martha, unsurprisingly, wasn't pleased to see that he had brought her back home, just about twelve hours after they had left (he was _certain_ that he had gotten the timing right this time - one good slap from Jackie Tyler had gone a long way in teaching the Doctor his lesson, it seemed). However, he spared very little sympathy for the shocked, hurt look in Martha's eyes as he let the TARDIS doors fall closed between them and prepared to carry out his plan to leave her to her normal, human life back on Earth.

The Doctor had more than fulfilled his promise of "one trip", after all, and he knew that the longer that Martha stayed on the TARDIS, the more awkward things would become when he inevitably had to turn down her increasingly bold flirtations. However, the strange and impossible Professor Lazarus had caught the Doctor's attention quite against his will, and Martha had a direct family connection to him, so it only seemed prudent to bring her along while he did a little bit of investigating.

The Doctor realized his mistake as soon as Martha announced that the event that they would be attending was "black tie required", which all but guaranteed that she would be watching him appraisingly out of the corner of her eye for the entirety of the night while she, herself, wore a dress that exposed far more skin than normal.

However, eyeing Martha's knee-length flowing skirt and heels only served to remind the Doctor of what a fool he had been when he had forced Rose into a maid's uniform back in Pete's World instead of allowing her to dress up as she had desired. Over nine-hundred-years-old and he was still just a daft old idiot who never knew how good he had it until the opportunity was gone and lost forever.

The Doctor made a pointed effort to keep his hands tucked firmly into his pockets throughout the entirety of the event - becoming even more cautious after he was introduced to Martha's family and her eagle-eyed, suspicious mother. However, when Lazarus's experiment eventually went wrong, as it was always going to do, the Doctor suddenly found himself crammed into a tiny capsule that didn't really allow for much modesty between him and Martha at all. Every single one of his telepathic abilities was crying out against the forced closeness, and it took all of the Doctor's (admittedly limited) self-control to keep himself from fleeing from the capsule and running straight into the jaws of the monster waiting for them outside.

However, when it came down to it, the Doctor was still nothing more than a weak, old fool, and when the night was over, he still asked Martha back for one more trip on the TARDIS. He was shocked into dumbfounded silence when she quietly refused him - he was _certain_ of the lingering glances that she had been passing him all night, and he knew that he hadn't misinterpreted her anger when he had tried to leave her behind earlier.

"I can't go on like this - 'one more trip', it's not fair!" Martha clarified heatedly.

"What are you talking about?" the Doctor asked in confusion.

"Well, I don't want to be just a passenger anymore - someone you take along for a treat!" she insisted desperately. "If that's how you still see me, I'd rather stay here."

The Doctor felt a twinge of guilt as he stared at Martha's back and silently cursed himself for being such a useless, sentimental old man. He knew that he should leave her behind - he really, _really_ should - but he just couldn't. He needed the company, he needed Martha's lingering glances and adoring looks, he needed to feel as though he _meant_ something to _someone_ , _somewhere_. And so he relented, just as he always knew that he would.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Martha cried excitedly as she ran up to him and eagerly threw her arms around his neck in gratitude. The Doctor held his breath as he willingly hugged her back, craving the physical affection she so easily offered, but knowing that he would only be disappointed when he was met with a smell that was _not_ Rose's familiar shampoo.

"Well, you were never really just a passenger, were you?" he muttered as he graciously allowed Martha to step into the TARDIS before him.

She flashed him a wide, hopeful grin over her shoulder as she skipped eagerly into the console room and the Doctor just knew that the mouth on this body was going to get him into trouble in one way or another. He could only hope that Martha truly was as clever as she appeared - maybe she would be able to see through his brash, confident exterior to the wounded, ugly thing that lay beneath. Maybe then she would stop looking at him with such adoration in her eyes and finally run away from him as she should.


	2. Martha (Part Two)

\---------- 42 ----------

Having a sun burning him up from the inside out was just as painful and traumatic as it sounded, but there was an odd sense of peace to the experience, too. For the first time in a very long time, the Doctor was pleased to note that he didn't feel that bottomless, yearning ache that had been haunting him ever since he had been forced to say goodbye to Rose. In fact, in the face of all of that burning, searing pain, he couldn't seem to remember much of anything at all. There was just heat and flames and no room for anything else.

Martha was there through it all, though - her voice calm and reassuring even when the Doctor was certain that regeneration was the only option. True, real fear blinded him to everything other than his own fight for survival as he attempted to keep the fire of the sentient sun at bay.

In the end, it was Martha who saved the day, and the Doctor had to admit that she was getting increasingly good at that. When he hugged her to celebrate their victory, he lifted her up off of her feet just like he would have done with Rose and enjoyed the simple fact that they were both alive to see another day.

He gave her a key to the TARDIS after that - the least that he could do, really, to thank her for saving his life (again). They both already knew that she wasn't going anywhere any time soon, anyway. He called it a "frequent flyer's privilege", but he wondered when Martha would begin to catch onto the fact that these small trinkets and gifts were nothing more than the Doctor's pathetic attempt to convince her to stay when they both knew that he would never be able to give her the one thing that she really wanted.

\---------- Human Nature & The Family of Blood ----------

If there was one thing that the Doctor knew for certain, it was that he was a useless, hopeless idiot - and it seemed that those few defining characteristics carried over and stayed with him no matter what species he was currently masquerading as. However, with all of his Time Lord abilities locked up inside of an old fob watch, the one thing that John Smith didn't have to worry about was touch telepathy.

For the first time in his many lives, the Doctor was free to touch and be touched without fear of repercussions, and the part of him that remained in his new, human body absolutely reveled in it. There was still a need for a certain level of propriety, living in the early twentieth-century as he was, but that didn't mean that he couldn't let himself enjoy the feel of Nurse Joan Redfern's fingers in his hair as she bandaged him up, or her hand trailing against his as they passed a book or a stack of papers between themselves, or even the brush of her lips as he finally threw caution to the wind and kissed her.

The trapped Time Lord in the fob watch cried out in agony from his tiny, hidden prison, but the human man couldn't have cared less as he lost himself in the simple pleasure of being close to the one woman who he cared about most in the entire world. Was it always this _easy_ for humans - to fall in love and act on their emotions and never care about the consequences of what tomorrow might bring? The silent, hidden heart in John Smith's chest burned with envy as his fingers gently traced the outline of Joan's face without fear of broaching any sort of ethical or moral boundaries.

The Doctor told himself that he drew the line when the Family of Blood went about attacking the town and taking innocent human lives, but really the line was drawn when John took it upon himself to dance with Nurse Redfern. It brought up too many memories of other dances in other bodies with other blondes and the Doctor instantly knew that the time for hiding was over.

John, predictably, refused to give up his life without a fight, though. The Doctor wouldn't have expected anything less from any man who claimed to share even half of a consciousness with him. He made sure to give John and Joan a glimpse of their future together as one last parting gift, though. Why not let the poor man see all that a simple, human life could have offered him? It was a fantasy that the Doctor played out often enough in his own mind, he knew how to make it look and feel real as he carefully allowed the timelines to solidify and twist together into a heartbreaking tale of what might have been.

"Where is he - John Smith?" Joan asked him later, after the Doctor had fully come back to himself and put an end to the Family of Blood for good.

"He's in here, somewhere," the Doctor stated casually, motioning disinterestedly towards himself as he watched her fight and fail to meet his eyes.

"Like a story," she mused sadly. "Could you change back?"

"Yes," the Doctor answered honestly, remembering another time from not so very long ago when he had been asked the same question by a different woman. Back then, his answer had been "no" - there was no reversing the regeneration process, no matter how much he may have wished to do it, just to please Rose. Now, his denial to change came a bit easier.

"Well then ... He was braver than you, in the end - that ordinary man," Nurse Redfern stated plainly. "You chose to change - he chose to die."

"Come with me." The Doctor wasn't entirely sure who was asking anymore - him or John Smith - he just knew that somewhere, deep inside of himself, he _felt_ something for Joan that he was never going to be able to feel for Martha. Whatever the great, unnameable emotion was, it made him feel alive again, and he was determined to chase that feeling down no matter what the consequences, just like John had done.

"We could start again," the Doctor suggested hopefully ( _desperately_ , if he was being strictly honest with himself). "I'd like that! You and me - we could _try_ , at least. Because everything that John Smith is and was - I'm capable of that, too."

"I can't," she stated firmly.

"Please come with me," the Doctor insisted, throwing pride and ego aside as he extended the offer a second time (something he _never, ever_ did except for that _one other time_ ). He knew he was begging, but he didn't care. He was a desperate man (yes, alright, he could admit it) and he was willing to say or do whatever it took in that moment to convince Joan to come with him and help him to heal his battered, lonely hearts.

Everything except lie to her, that is. And when she asked him her one question - "If the Doctor had never visited us - if he'd never chosen this place on a _whim_ , would anybody here have died?" - the Doctor knew that he didn't need to answer her. They both knew the truth already, and he wasn't about to try and defend himself against her well-deserved ire.

When he finally left 1913, the Doctor silently determined never to return to this date and time again. Such things happened sometimes, throughout his travels in space and time - sometimes he encountered places that were simply too dangerous to return to.

The Doctor had put an end to John Smith in England, 1913, and he wasn't exactly interested in returning to see if the human man was capable of outsmarting or outmaneuvering the Time Lord in him. Because the Doctor knew for certain that if John Smith ever _did_ return, he would never be willing to go back again, and the Doctor would be forced to live out the rest of his extended days trapped inside of an old, silver fob watch while his own, foolish heart lived out its dark desires without him.

\---------- Blink ----------

The Doctor felt a certain amount of sympathy for the weeping angels the first time that he met them. Their very existence was oddly poetic - to be forever reaching out towards others and never really being able to touch them. To have to hide one's face from every living creature simply because their gaze could turn you into frozen, living stone.

The Doctor knew the feeling well.

He even had half-a-mind to try and offer his help to the creatures, at first - but then they stole his TARDIS and zapped him and Martha back into 1969, and all thoughts of mercy were quickly forgotten. Thankfully, he had a human girl in 2007 who was up for the job of helping them out, and he could certainly think of worse decades to be trapped in while he and Martha were forced to wait.


	3. Martha (Part Three)

\---------- Utopia, The Sound of Drums, & Last of the Time Lords ----------

When the TARDIS finally made visiting modern-day Cardiff a necessity, the Doctor begrudgingly agreed to go under the conditions that he would _not_ \- under _any_ circumstances - step foot off of his ship. He would park the TARDIS and allow her exactly twenty seconds to soak up whatever rift energy she could get, but he would not so much as glance outside at the busy city streets that held far too many hurtful memories.

However, it seemed that Cardiff wasn't quite willing to just let the Doctor leave in peace, as the TARDIS suddenly lurched back into action and immediately hurled them into the end of the universe. When he finally stepped off of his ship and into the unknown, the Doctor scowled down at the unconscious form of Jack Harkness and wished that he could feel anything other than complete and utter disgust as he squinted against the man's unnatural, unending timelines. When the rogue time agent finally came gasping back to life before his very eyes, the Doctor had to fight very hard not to be sick. Jack's blatant flirting with Martha certainly did nothing to help the matter.

"You abandoned me." Jack hurled the accusation with all of the bitter frustration that the Doctor deserved, and he absorbed it in stride, simply adding it to the pile of regrets and bad decisions that he seemed to be hoarding in the empty space between his hearts lately.

"Just got to ask," Jack continued haltingly, "the Battle of Canary Wharf, I saw the list of the dead ... It said Rose Tyler ..."

And even though the Doctor didn't want to relive that day in his memory any more than he strictly had to, he seized upon the opportunity just to hear her name being spoken out loud once more and to talk about the one person who never left his thoughts for more than a single second at any point during the day.

"Oh, no! Sorry, she's alive!" the Doctor assured him eagerly.

"You're kidding," Jack breathed in happy disbelief.

"Parallel world, safe and sound," he continued excitedly, "and Mickey, and her mother!"

Jack embraced him then, and the Doctor returned the physical touch, even though it made his skin crawl. It really was good to see him again, even if it meant having to deal with the constant, stabbing headache that the other man caused in the space right between the Doctor's eyes.

The end of the universe ended up being nothing at all like he might have imagined, though - and it suddenly dawned on the Doctor that he really would never be done saving all of these people from this one, small planet on the outer edges of some obscure galaxy. No matter how far into the past or future that he went, it seemed that there were always, _always_ humans who needed him - just never the _one_ human who _he_ needed.

The Doctor eagerly took up the opportunity for commiseration with Jack - the only other being who he had met in a long, long time who now understood the sting of eternity.

"The last thing I remember, back when I was mortal," Jack muttered distractedly as he worked hard to get the rocket back up and running so that the last few stragglers of humanity could escape to the unknowable land of Utopia, "I was facing three daleks - death by extermination. And then I came back to life. What happened?"

"Rose." The only answer to any question that ever really mattered. So simple, and yet so, _so_ important.

"Everything she did was _so_ human," the Doctor mused quietly. "She brought you back to life, but she couldn't control it - she brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."

"Do you think she could change me back?" Jack asked, fighting and failing to hide the desperation in his tone.

"I took the power out of her," the Doctor explained, his tone as flat and defeated as his own two hearts. "She's gone, Jack. She's not just living on a parallel world, she's trapped there. The walls have closed."

"I'm sorry," Jack whispered solemnly.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed darkly. He was sorry, too. Sorry that he couldn't have done better - _been_ better - for her. Sorry that he couldn't seem to find a way to fix any of their current problems. Sorry for every mistake in every timeline that had ever brought them all to _this_.

In the end, the humans were all saved (or, at the very least, they all made it off of the planet alive) and the Doctor was left stranded at the end of the universe with Martha, Jack, a blue alien woman, and an old professor with a fob watch that was horribly, terrifyingly familiar.

The Doctor felt the exact moment that the watch was opened and a new Time Lord consciousness suddenly exploded into life inside of his head (a horribly terrifyingly _familiar_ Time Lord consciousness ...). The Doctor couldn't remember the last time that he had run so fast as he bolted back through the station in pursuit of that strange, small spark - his footsteps seeming to match the frantic, racing pulse of his hearts.

"Professor, are you there?" the Doctor cried out desperately as he pounded against the last locked door that separated him from the other man. "Please, I need to explain! Whatever you do, don't open that watch!"

But they both already knew that he was far, _far_ too late - too late to stop it, and too late to save him ...

The Doctor heard the gunshot a second before he got the doors open, and he felt the explosion of pain like a blast to his own gut as he rushed into the room and immediately laid eyes on the figure of the professor, sprawled out on the ground before the Doctor's TARDIS and glaring up at him with barely-restrained contempt.

The Doctor had exactly three-point-five seconds to stare into the new face of one of his oldest friends (or was " _enemy_ " a better description? The Doctor suspected that there wasn't really one word in any language in creation that would be able to describe their relationship accurately) before the professor slipped backwards through the doors of his ship and disappeared behind them, effectively locking the Doctor out.

He didn't lock him out of his thoughts, though, and the Doctor scrambled artlessly against the mind of the one man who he had thought that he would never, ever see again as he attempted to force him to see reason.

 _Please don't do this,_ he begged silently as he grabbed his sonic screwdriver and frantically attempted to unlock the TARDIS doors. _Please, please, there's so much you don't know ..._

"Let me in, let me in!" he called out desperately. "I'm begging you! Everything's changed! It's only the two of us, we're the only ones left! Just let me in!"

 _Just the two of us ..._ a familiar voice sneered in silent reply, his presence stinging and biting like ice as it crept through the Doctor's thoughts. _Just like old times._

The Doctor watched in helpless resignation as regeneration energy exploded from the inside of the TARDIS and the additional Time Lord consciousness within his head flared bright and began to burn. After a moment, a new voice rang out over the ship's intercom systems and the Doctor stood frozen in terror as he listened to the other man's sinister threats.

"Just stop, just _think_!" the Doctor pleaded through the locked TARDIS doors. _Don't do this. Please don't make it be this way, not again ..._

"Use my name," the other man demanded ominously. _You know I like it when you use my name,_ Doctor.

It had been so long - lifetimes since he had last seen him, spoken to him, _felt_ him inside of his head ... The Doctor didn't know if he was glad or disappointed to know that out of all of the Time Lords that could have possibly escaped the Time War, it was just the two of them who had somehow managed to survive. Even here, at the very end of the universe, it seemed that it all came down to them.

"Master," the Doctor replied quietly. "I'm sorry." _So sorry ... I wish now more than ever that I could change all that's happened ... I wish we could go back to the way things were ... I wish I could fix this ..._

"Tough!" the Master barked back in reply as he roughly shoved the Doctor out of his head and prepared the TARDIS for departure - abandoning the Doctor and his companions at the end of the universe without any chance of escape.

Well, that was the Master's _plan_ , anyway - luckily, the Doctor chose his friends well, and Jack still happened to have his old vortex manipulator on him, guaranteeing them safe (if not a bit bumpy) passage back to the present day.

Unfortunately, the Master still had a head start on them all, and it seemed that while the Doctor had been distracted with burying his own pain and dealing with his unexpected loss, his old friend had been hard at work in the early twenty-first-century, slowly infiltrating the British government and establishing himself as England's newest Prime Minister.

The Doctor watched in consternation as the Master sealed his plans to take over the earth with the announcement of peace talks with a series of floating, orb-like creatures who he called "the toclafane". The fake name instantly brought up unwelcome memories of childhood that the Doctor had thought he had managed to suppress long ago - which was probably the Master's intended effect, and likely the reason why he had picked it.

When the Doctor finally got the chance to speak with him again, the Master asked him about Gallifrey, just as he knew that he would - but for once, he found that he didn't mind divulging the details of all that he had witnessed during the Time War. Whatever else the Master was, he was a Time Lord first and foremost, and he deserved to know what had happened to their entire planet and race - what the Doctor had _made_ happen.

The Doctor begged for him to see reason, to understand the full scope of what it meant to be the last of one's kind, but the Master ignored him just as he had always done in favor of seizing power and control rather than settling for coexistence and peace.

Later when the Doctor finally allowed himself to relay a small part of the Master's childhood history to Jack and Martha in an attempt to somehow explain their ... _dynamic_ relationship, he found himself growing oddly nostalgic in a way that he hadn't in a very long time. He had spent centuries doing this dance with the Master, but everything was different now, and he found himself wondering if the two of them would be forced to bend and change with the times or if one or both of them would snap under the tremendous forces that were pressing in all around them.

When Jack finally revealed the true nature of his current work to them, the Doctor had to try very hard not to feel as though he had been betrayed by yet another person who he had considered to be a friend. The Torchwood symbol still made the Doctor physically nauseous, and he heated the fact that Jack was anywhere near it after all that he had witnessed at Canary Wharf. He eventually decided that what Jack got up to in his own time was his business, but the Doctor absolutely refused to allow the organization a second thought as he made use of their collected intel and then quickly moved on.

However, his desperation only continued to grow as he, Jack, and Martha boarded the sky ship that UNIT had dubbed the _Valiant_. He could feel the familiar tug of his sentient ship in the back of his mind the moment that they were all onboard, but the Doctor's hope for a happy reunion was quickly squandered as he finally found that old blue box again - or what was left of her, at least. The Master had cannibalized the TARDIS into a glowing red paradox machine that was bleeding time energy and making everything around her all wibbly and incoherent.

The Master - knowing or unknowingly - had taken the Doctor's last remaining comfort, the one constant that he had been permitted to keep ever since he had lost Gallifrey and every other Time Lord. The TARDIS had been there with him through the good, the bad, and the horrific - always there, singing in his head and reminding him that he had a home and a purpose that would never fail. Now, at long last, she was gone - twisted into something so backwards and unnatural that it hurt to even be within her walls.

However, despite all that the Master had done and all of the horrible pain that he had caused, the Doctor was still willing to give him one last chance at mercy - one last offer of redemption and a life outside of attempting to enslave others and rule over them. His old friend didn't make it easy, though, as he suddenly turned the toclafane on the people of the _Valiant_ , and then the entire earth below. The Doctor watched in helpless horror as what was left of his TARDIS opened up a rift over the skies of planet Earth and began to spew forth billions upon billions of the deadly toclafane.

The Doctor knew immediately that there was nothing that he could do - not from his current position directly under the Master's thumb and trapped within the web of his evil plans, at least. So instead, he was forced to enlist the help of his companion, and he quietly gave Martha the tools and instructions that she would need in order to put an end to all of this on her own. The Doctor knew that he would have to wait a very long time before he saw her again, and that many people would have to die before he would be able to put the world below back to rights, but he had to hold on to the hope that somehow his impossible plan would work, and that Martha Jones would be strong enough and clever enough to see it through to completion.

In the end, the Doctor did what he always did, and he used the Master's plan against him - not with violence or with weapons, but with the same quiet, patient tactics that had managed to outlast the fire and heat of the Time War and continued to persevere, even now. That, and the combined thought of every single human being linked together through a telepathic field across the earth below.

Finally restored to his young appearance and glowing bright with the power of combined, telepathic thought, the Doctor embraced the Master without hesitation and whispered those three powerful, dangerous words that he had been waiting to tell him ever since he had first found the professor hiding at the end of the universe: "I forgive you." _I always have and I always will - because now we're in this together, whether we like it or not._

With the paradox machine destroyed and the Master's plan for nuclear destruction foiled, the Doctor grabbed Martha and held on tight as time suddenly began to reverse and they found themselves caught up in the whirlwind that suddenly took over the entirety of the _Valiant_. He could sense her overwhelming amount of relief and gratitude that he had returned to her, though she conveniently seemed to have forgotten that it was him who had gotten them into this year-long mess and sent her away to begin with. The Doctor was an ageless being who could perceivably live for centuries more to come, but he wondered if that would ever be enough time to apologize to poor Martha for all that he had put her through.

He also wondered if it would be enough time to reason with the Master and restore their relationship back to what it always could have been. The Doctor had a brief, twenty-seven-second interval where he allowed himself to truly believe that it would be possible before a sudden gunshot rang out and startled them all into silence as the Master doubled over and then sank to the floor.

"Always the women," he groaned as the Doctor rushed forward and gathered him quickly into his arms. "Dying in your arms ... Happy now?"

"You're not dying, don't be stupid," the Doctor growled stubbornly. "It's only a bullet, just regenerate."

"No."

"Regenerate - just regenerate. _Please_ ," the Doctor begged helplessly. " _Please_ , just regenerate, come on!"

"And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with _you_?" the Master sneered hatefully. _Never_ , he added silently, taking joy in the pain that that single word inflicted on the Doctor's already-broken hearts. It was the exact opposite of the " _forever_ " that Rose had promised him not so long ago, and he found that he was just as lost now as he was back then at how to respond.

"How about that?" the Master breathed, making sure that the Doctor felt every last spasm of pain that he was currently experiencing as he embraced the unknown and stubbornly refused to tap into the regeneration energy that was building within him, just waiting to be released. " _I win_."

When he finally closed his eyes and the Doctor felt his life force fade away into silence within his head, he felt the bitter, crushing sensation of loss and abandonment all over again. Somehow, it was even _worse_ than it had been when he had lost Rose. It had never really been about his own happiness, after all - the Doctor had spent centuries preparing himself to die old and alone, it wasn't something that was new to him. But the Master's death signified the death of their entire species - _again_ \- and that one, great loss was just as crushing now as it had been when he had suddenly lost billions at the destruction of Gallifrey.

He cried aloud and mourned for his friend just as he had done for them all those years ago - just as he had never been able to do for Rose. There was no one else to grieve for him, after all - even if the Time Lords had still been around, he doubted that any of them would have mourned the Master's passing. So the Doctor did all that he could for his friend, making sure to send him off right and deal with his remains properly. He needed to go through the ritualistic process in order to know for sure that it was done, and that he was really the last one left - _again_.

Unfortunately, it seemed that he would have to return to his TARDIS alone once more, too. Jack was back to his Torchwood team (even though the Doctor had surprised them all by offering him the chance to return - what could he say? He was a desperate, hopeless man in need of familiarity and commiseration), and Martha was back to her family. He had to admit that he was proud of her, even though her goodbye stung more than he thought it would. She was stronger than him, in the end - she was able to realize when enough was enough and to not prolong the painful process of cutting ties just because she didn't have the strength to own up to her mistakes. Unlike the Doctor, she wasn't afraid of being alone.

He thanked her, because it was all that he could do - even though, in reality, they both knew that she deserved so, so much more. When he hugged her, he unabashedly soaked up the last moment of physical contact and stored it away in the empty space between his hearts for the long, lonely nights that he knew were waiting for him.

She left him with a kiss on the cheek, a cell phone in his hand, and instructions to return when she called for him. The Doctor smiled as he watched her go and wondered if he would ever be able to live up to the legacy of the incredible, amazing Martha Jones.


	4. Astrid

\---------- Voyage of the Damned ----------

This time, the Doctor had exactly forty-eight seconds of being back in the vortex before a new explosion abruptly cut off his moment of grieving and quickly hurtled him back into danger once more. He reluctantly donned the old black and white tuxedo as he stepped out onto the futuristic ship masquerading as the _Titanic_ and prepared to spend his holiday busying himself with a little bit of snooping.

He ran into Astrid Peth almost immediately and quickly determined to befriend her. She was pretty (as pretty as someone from Sto could be, anyway - he was still a coward, after all, and had to include some sort qualifier) and had a wanderlust that reminded him of a certain young blonde human in a way that instantly demanded his attention.

He liked Morvin and Foon, too - both of them lovely, interesting people who deserved better than what the rest of the pompous elite on the ship were giving them. He even liked the eccentric, somewhat-out-of-touch Mr. Copper, who introduced the Doctor to a whole new take on the old Earth holiday of Christmas.

However, the trip that their small party took in order to better experience the primitive human festival instantly filled the Doctor with a sense of foreboding, as he glanced around at the oddly-empty city streets, expecting to find busy, late-night shoppers, and instead finding only silence and a thick sense of unease. But his concerns were quickly pushed aside as Astrid jumped into his arms and eagerly began to rant and rave over the small, alien planet.

"Oh, this is amazing! Thank you!" she exclaimed, beaming up at him with a look of wonder that quickly reminded the Doctor of why he traveled the way that he did, and why it was always so, so important for him not to be alone. To get to see other people experience the enormity of space and time was truly what kept him in check and reminded him never to take any of it for granted. Getting to see the universe through _their_ eyes would _always_ be the one thing that kept him going.

He took her hand as they went about exploring the empty London streets and allowed her bubbly elation to flow through his veins for a moment longer that was strictly necessary before he quickly closed off his mind once more and schooled his thoughts back into focusing on the issue that lay before them. He didn't miss Astrid's sidelong look, however, when he kept his grip on her hand for just a moment too long.

The awkward moment was abruptly cut off, however, when they were suddenly teleported back onboard the _Titanic_ and then promptly faced with impending disaster as a group of meteors suddenly collided with the side of their ship. However, the Doctor was still the Doctor, and even when their ship was falling apart around them and a mystery threatened to take all of their lives, he still managed to find the time to get to know his new young, attractive companion.

The last few times that the Doctor had asked someone to travel with him, he had been met with hesitancy or even out-right refusal - even with Rose, he had had to ask twice. But this time, it was Astrid herself who offered to join him in his TARDIS, her eagerness to see the stars and explore time and space making her bold enough to extend the offer before he ever even got the chance.

"It's not always safe ..." he warned her hesitantly, not exactly sure if the excited swelling inside of his hearts was to be trusted or not.

"So you need someone to take care of you!" she insisted adamantly. "I've got no one back on Sto - no family, just ... me. So, what do you think? Can I come with you?"

The desperation in her eyes reminded him sharply of that time from oh, so long ago when he had looked up at the night sky over Gallifrey and began making plans to run away. That was centuries ago, and he had seen so many people come and go during the space in between. Still, no matter what, the Doctor alone continued running - never stopping, never faltering whenever someone or something needed help. He couldn't help but wonder how long Astrid could run. Everyone, no matter how perfect or brilliant they were, eventually left him in one form or another when they got tired of it or simply couldn't go on any more. However, the excited gleam in Astrid's eyes gave the Doctor hope that maybe this time - maybe just this once - he had found someone who was willing to go just as far as he was, and he found himself relenting before he even had the chance to consciously think the decision through.

"Yeah, I'd like that," he murmured with a small, heartfelt smile that Astrid immediately answered with one of her own.

They were forced to part ways not long after that, but even with time ticking down around them, that didn't stop Astrid from grabbing the nearest box that she could find, climbing on top of it, and pulling the Doctor into a hard, desperate kiss. The Doctor struggled to remain still as his memories immediately took him back to a futuristic hospital in New New York with cat-nun-nurses and a pair of soft, pink lips and yellow hair. He had to fight very hard to remind himself that this was a different time, a different place, and a different _person_ , and not to lose himself in the moment as Astrid pulled back and gazed at him with wide, gleaming eyes.

There was no sharp, burning attraction to her kiss that made him want to shy away like he had experienced with Martha - it was simply an honest, unashamed offer of farewell and comfort that made his hearts melt in a way that he hadn't experienced ever since Rose had left. The Doctor found that he was even less equipped to handle this than he was the blatant flirting that he had been forced to endure with his previous companion, and he stared at Astrid in shock for a few moments as he desperately scrambled to get his thoughts back in order once more.

Her kiss was still burning on his lips as he watched her tip over the edge and fall the long way down into the core of the ship's engines, taking the evil Max Capricorn with her as she selflessly sacrificed herself - and her dreams of seeing the stars - in order to save the rest of their lives. The Doctor realized as he watched her disappear into the ball of flame below that he had been wrong about her from the very beginning - ever since he had first met Astrid, he had been comparing her to Rose (just as he suspected that he would compare _all_ women, from now until the end of time), but that wasn't right. Astrid wasn't like Rose, not at all - she was like _him_.

He fought desperately to bring her back - even at the very end, it seemed that the Doctor still didn't quite know how to let go and say goodbye. But eventually he forced himself to follow her example, and he gave her one last kiss before he sent her atoms scattering across the stars, where she could travel into eternity, just like he would. The Doctor realized then that he had been right in his first evaluation of the young, blonde woman - she would never stop running, never stop exploring, never stop dreaming of _more_. The Doctor just wished that she could have done so by his side. Because, where as Astrid had all of creation at her disposal now to keep her company, the Doctor was once more forced to go on completely and totally alone.


	5. Donna (Part One)

\---------- Partners in Crime ----------

When he began to investigate the frankly too-good-to-be-true Adipose Industries, the Doctor had expected to find some sort of alien involvement lurking at the root of the operation, but the _last_ thing that he had expected to find was _Donna Noble_ \- dressed in a business suit and gaping at him in pleased surprise as the two of them listened in on the company's nefarious plots to take over the world.

When they finally ran into each other again in the literal sense, the Doctor wasn't entirely sure who initiated their reunion hug first - all he knew was that he was surprised at how happy he was to see her again, and the firm embrace felt nicer than he had expected. Maybe he had just been traveling on his own for a bit too long, but it was nice to think that there was someone out there in the universe who had apparently missed him enough to attempt to hunt him down.

"Don't you _ever_ change?" Donna demanded as he grabbed her hand and they returned to their mad dash to escape Ms. Foster and her lackeys. The Doctor might have laughed if they weren't currently running for their lives - despite their adventures together last Christmas, poor Donna didn't even know the _half_ of it. Maybe that was why she happened to be the only woman on planet earth who he had managed to run into twice, now. Maybe if she really knew the truth of who (and _what_ ) he was, then she wouldn't have made it her sole business to track him down again.

However, it seemed that Donna had changed her mind quite a bit about running off to the stars with him, and the Doctor found that he barely had the chance to get a word in edgewise as she practically forced her way back onto the TARDIS.

"Would you rather be on your own?" she asked hesitantly when he didn't immediately help her in packing up her things and rather settled for watching her with a wary, uncomfortable expression.

"No," he replied, the honest answer coming easily as he met her gaze. "Actually, no. But ... the last time ... with Martha, like I said ... it got complicated. And it was all my fault."

However, Donna's brash, stubborn attitude quickly assured him that she would not, in fact, be falling into the same pitfalls that Martha had fallen into. In fact, her reassurances that she was not even the least bit interested were so adamant that the Doctor wasn't quite sure whether to be relieved or offended.

Considering the fact that she had already rejected him once before, Donna settled into life on the TARDIS far quicker than he had expected her to (and also with much more luggage than he had been prepared for). The Doctor wasn't sure if it was simply the fact that they had been reunited against the many odds stacked between them, or if he was simply growing sentimental in his old age, but he thought that he felt a certain tugging in the back of his mind as Donna left behind her life on Earth and stepped back into his time ship - as though fate herself was putting her own spin on their timelines and rewriting the paths that lay ahead of them.

He silently determined to keep an eye on the strange sense of foreboding that he could feel welling up within him and hoped that it wouldn't prove to be a warning of impending heartbreak for the fiery, indomitable Donna Noble.

\---------- The Fires of Pompeii ----------

The Doctor fell into a rhythm with Donna almost as easily as he had with Martha, though there were, of course, remarkable, significant differences between the two. Where Martha was friendly and easy-going, Donna was no-nonsense and kept a notable distance between herself and the rest of the world. Besides the casual hand-grabbing that was necessary when two people were facing life-or-death circumstances, the Doctor and Donna largely kept an easy, companionable distance between themselves, which took a weight off of the Doctor's shoulders that he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying until it was suddenly gone.

However, the separation that Donna purposefully put between herself and others didn't exempt her from a sense of sympathy for the plight of the innocent - and the Doctor had to fight hard to ignore her pleas for mercy and stay true to the timelines that he knew were right.

Pompeii _had_ to burn - it was one city, or the entire world. The Doctor had been making these types of decisions his entire life - he knew what had to be done, even if he didn't like it - but that didn't meant that carrying out the actions came any easier with time and practice. In the end, he was glad for Donna's hands on his as they prepared to blow the trigger on Vesuvius together. He could feel her heartbreak as his own as the terrible weight of their actions came down upon their shoulders, and it was nice to know that, for once, he didn't have to make the decision on his own.

The Doctor did eventually go back to save Caecilius and his family in a way that he had never been able to save his own, and though the unnatural twist in the timelines made him sick, he was glad that Donna had been there to convince him to return to the city of Pompeii. He knew deep down that it was the right thing to do, whether the timelines agreed or not, and it wasn't as if it were the first time that he had broken the rules because of his own, foolish compassion.

When he set the small family of four down on the outskirts of the city and watched them prepare to make a brand new start in honor of their fallen friends and neighbors, the Doctor felt a sense of hope springing up in him that he hadn't felt in a very long time. Maybe if Caecilius and his family could start over and keep going, then he could manage it, too.

\---------- Planet of the Ood ----------

Donna quickly proved that her compassion for others in need extended beyond the human race as the two of them stumbled upon an ood factory in the forty-second century and instantly uncovered the malpractice taking place within its grounds. The Doctor couldn't help but think of Rose on that snowy, desolate planet - she had had sympathy for the slave race when they had run into them on Krop Tor as well. He knew that her reaction would mirror Donna's righteous indignation if she could be here now, and the haunting nostalgia of her memory seemed to push the Doctor forward as he fought to save the ood in a way that he hadn't been able to back when they had been trapped in that sanctuary base over the black hole.

The Doctor was both surprised and unsettled as he uncovered the ood race's propensity for telepathic communication, and he found himself having to lift the mental shields around his mind once more in an attempt to connect with them. Their song of fear and captivity was enough to break both of his hearts and make him long for the freedom of the open skies once more as they collectively called out for release and justice. He opened Donna's mind to it partly because he knew that she wouldn't have stopped asking if he had said "no", and partly because he was simply tired of having to suffer through it alone. She could only stand twenty-seven seconds of it, but it was enough to know that she understood the great pain that the Doctor was having to work through as he continued to fight to free the ood.

"I spent all that time looking for you, Doctor, because I thought it was so _wonderful_ out here," Donna mused darkly as she gazed in horror at the ood currently holding its brain out to them in its gently-cupped hands. "I want to go home ..." she breathed in desperation.

The Doctor couldn't really blame her - if he had any sort of home or normal life to return to, he supposed that he would be longing for it right now, too - but before they could discuss the issue of Donna leaving him all on his own again, they had a mission to complete, and the people working for Ood Operations certainly didn't make it easy for them.

Still, they managed to put an end to Mr. Halpen and his backwards company (with a little help from the very patient Ood Sigma), and the Ood Brain was free to sing openly once more, the song of life and hope for the future spurring the Doctor forward and making him eager to continue on in his adventures. However, Ood Sigma's parting words left him feeling that odd sense of foreboding again - the sensation that something was twisting the timelines around Donna and the Doctor and forcing them into some sort of unknowable situation that made him uneasy.

"Every song must end," Ood Sigma assured him ominously. But the Doctor was determined not to hear the end of that song of hope and life - not today, when it was so fresh and new and thrumming through his veins like adrenaline. With Donna's assurance that she had changed her mind and would continue to travel with him after all (for the time being, at least), he shuffled them both back into the TARDIS and pointedly ignored the rest of his growing concerns in favor of focusing on their next adventure instead.

\---------- The Sontaran Stratagem & The Poison Sky ----------

The Doctor was apprehensive about returning to Earth at Martha's urging, but he had promised her that he would respond when she called, and really, he supposed, it was the least that he could do.

"You haven't changed a bit!" he told her as he instantly swept her up into his arms and gave her a welcoming hug. However, he quickly discovered that that wasn't entirely true. The stinging hum of desire that seemed to have become second nature to their strained relationship was no longer prickling against his skin, and it didn't take long for Donna to deftly point out the fact that Martha was now wearing an engagement ring. This new information had the Doctor breathing a small sigh of relief that was quickly cut off when Martha took out a walkie-talkie and immediately began barking orders.

"Is that what you did to her - turned her into a soldier?" Donna asked curiously as the three of them eyed the red berets and guns that suddenly surrounded them.

The Doctor gritted his teeth in silent consternation as he watched Martha slip through the UNIT soldiers as easily as though she had been doing it all her life. It felt _wrong_ to see her like this, but what right did he have to tell her otherwise? He couldn't exactly deny the accusation in Donna's words, and it wasn't as though what Martha got up to on her own time was any of his business, anyway.

The day just got stranger, however, as the Doctor was introduced to Luke Rattigan, and then Staal the Undefeated himself. And if a sontaran invasion wasn't enough, he was finally introduced to Donna's family and realized that Donna wasn't the only human that the Doctor seemed to be continually running into lately, as he instantly recognized the face of her grandfather as the man who he had met this past Christmas during his Earth tour with Astrid. The old man introduced himself as Wilfred Mott, and the Doctor silently mused over the fact that he seemed to get along much better with his companions' grandfathers than he did with their mothers - he would certainly have to make a note of that for the future.

He gave Donna a TARDIS key not long after that, just to ensure that she wouldn't get any further ideas of leaving him as he dashed into the poisonous smoke that was currently threatening to choke the life out of every living thing on Earth. Of course, the Doctor had no way of knowing that the sontarans would teleport the TARDIS directly onto their ship, leaving him on his own to stop nuclear destruction, find the real Martha, and save Donna's life all at the same time (and, as it happened, in that order, exactly).

Burning the gas out of the earth's atmosphere was a simple enough operation, but it wasn't enough to defeat the determined sontarans. The Doctor knew that they would be regrouping in preparation to destroy the planet that had managed to resist their invasion, but still, he had to give them a choice - he had to offer them the chance to leave and survive before he ripped apart their entire fleet and himself along with it.

Because, if there was one thing that the Doctor had learned from Donna during their travels together, it was that he should always be willing to give second chances. However, Luke Rattigan was more clever than the Doctor gave him credit for, and had a righteous fury that outweighed even his own, and the young human boy ended up placing his own life on the line of battle so that the Doctor could live another day and go on to fight off another alien invasion.

After everything was said and done, the Doctor was pleased that Donna still seemed determined to leave her family behind in favor of the TARDIS, but before they got the chance to say goodbye to Martha and allow her to return to the life that she had created for herself, his old time ship seemed to get ideas of her own as she suddenly took timelines into her own hands and hurtled the three of them forward into the unknown quite against their collective will. It seemed that she had something that she was very keen that they all experience together, and she wasn't about to sit around and wait for them to get there on their own time. The Doctor appreciated the fact that, even now, his brilliant ship was looking out for him and his companions, he just wished that the TARDIS would deign to clue him in on the details of her little plots every once in a while.


	6. Donna (Part Two)

\---------- The Doctor's Daughter ----------

Apparently, the thing that the TARDIS simply couldn't wait to show them ended up being a futuristic, underground bunker on a planet called Messaline, where two races fought for control and dominance in order to settle and colonize the planet.

For the first time in a while, however, the Doctor found that he simply couldn't care less about the war that was going on around them, because they barely managed to make it two steps outside of the TARDIS before his right arm was thrust roughly into a machine which took a layer of skin from the back of his hand and promptly spat out a fully-grown adult woman who seemed to have been produced using his own tissues.

The Doctor was slow to believe the proof of his own eyes as he watched the young blonde woman immediately spring into action, but he had to admit that there were certain familial traits that seemed to ring true as he watched her take up her weapon and begin shooting at and exploding everything that got in her way.

Donna later labeled the young woman "Jenny", but the Doctor was loath to use the name. He had learned long ago that you should never name the things that you didn't intend to keep, and he certainly planned to run as far and as fast as he could the first moment that he got the chance. He still didn't know why his TARDIS had brought them all here in the first place, but the Doctor suspected that his old ship might finally be going a bit senile in her old age as he determined to get as far away from this "Jenny" person as soon as possible.

However, as soon as Donna pointed out the girl's second heart, the Doctor instantly knew that there would be no outrunning his mistakes - not this time. If there was another Time Lord in existence - even the mere echo of one - then she was his responsibility. It wasn't as if she had anywhere else to go, after all - the Doctor had made certain of that when he destroyed Gallifrey. Thankfully, there seemed to be just enough of the Doctor's overly-sentimental hearts in the girl, and she quickly learned the lesson that the Doctor himself had spent lifetimes trying to learn - that there was always a choice, and that there was always a better option than killing.

Still, the Doctor was hesitant to entertain the thought of Jenny coming away with them on the TARDIS. Simply _looking_ at her was difficult, when the familiar light in her eyes reminded him so vividly of all that he had loved and lost not only on Gallifrey, but also on Bad Wolf Bay. All of that hope for a family and a future had long since been dashed to pieces, and he knew that he couldn't risk feeding that ridiculous sense of " _maybe_ " ever again.

"But when they died, that part of me died with them," the Doctor lied with the best approximation of an emotionless mask that he could muster. "It'll never come back - not now."

But Donna, of course, called the Doctor's bluff, and as he held Jenny's dying body in his arms a short while later, he had to admit that she was right. Still, he managed to lie one last time as he cradled his daughter's body close and whispered, "We can go anywhere - _everywhere_. You choose."

"That sounds good," she agreed weakly, the tears in her eyes telling him that she wasn't going to be falling for any of his lies, either.

The Doctor decided to attempt raw honesty next, as he brought his hand to her face and filled her mind with all of the breathless wonder of the universe that they both knew that she would never live to see with her own eyes. "You're my daughter," he told her gently, "and we've only just got started. You're going to be _great_. You're going to be more than great - you're going to be _amazing_."

He continued to press a thousand other wordless promises into her mind even after she had long since closed her eyes and gone still. The Doctor sealed his vow to never forget again with a kiss to her forehead and then made sure that the rest of the people who he was leaving behind on Messaline would never forget, either - that they would always remember that there was a choice and that one never had to be cruel when they could be brave instead.

"All those things you've been ready to die for ..." Martha muttered later after he had finally returned her back to her normal life once more. "I thought for a _moment_ there you'd _finally_ found something worth living for."

"Oh, there's always something worth living for, Martha," he assured her, and for the first time in a very long time, the Doctor actually managed to believe in the truth of his own words. Maybe he would never have his family or Rose back ever again, and maybe he would lose dozens more along the way, but no matter how many times his hearts broke, there would always be more - more planets to explore, more people to save, more relationships to build him up and tear him down in a thousand different ways.

The Doctor's future had been stolen from him when he had lost the woman who he loved, but for the first time since Bad Wolf bay, he was beginning to _hope_ again. The sensation was odd and terrifying to say the least, but he knew without a doubt that it was what Rose would have wanted for him, so he decided to cherish the fleeting sensation while he could and pray that maybe this time, it would last.

\---------- The Unicorn and the Wasp ----------

The Doctor got to scratch a line off of his mental bucket list when he and Donna traveled to 1920s England and began solving mysteries with none other than Agatha Christie herself. These were the types of adventures that the Doctor lived for - though personally he could have done without all of the murders and the attempted poisoning (he really, _really_ missed Rose, then - having a mental connection with someone would have saved him a lot of trouble with having to mime to Donna what he needed, and the shock of a saving kiss would have been much more appreciated).

The day was saved and the truth was revealed in the end, though the Doctor supposed that it never could have gone any other way with a brilliant mind like Agatha's on their side.

He mourned the death of an innocent creature at the same time that he celebrated the successful resolution of the mystery and silently wondered to himself what it might be like to completely lose one's memory of another person. Was it even truly possible? Or would the hole that the person left behind always be there, whispering in the back of your mind and making you yearn for something or someone that you couldn't even remember? They were questions that he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to answer, but the Doctor determined to keep trying in the meantime anyway.

\---------- Silence in the Library & Forest of the Dead ---------- 

The Doctor told himself that he went to The Library because he was feeling nostalgic after meeting one of the greatest Earth authors of all time, but the truth of the matter was that there was another mystery afoot and he simply couldn't help himself. The call on the psychic paper drew him in just as it always did, though the situation turned out to be far more dire than he had originally accounted for.

His first glimpse of Professor River Song was through a space suit helmet, her unfamiliar features lit up blue from the dark confines within. Their first exchange was pretty brief too, as she greeted him fondly and he, in turn, demanded that she leave. All in all, it was so very different from his first interaction with Rose (a sharp rebuke versus a beckoning, desperate hand) that the Doctor couldn't quite wrap his mind around who this woman from his future was and why she seemed to think that they were so close.

When she reached out and touched him for the first time, the Doctor had to fight very hard not to flinch away from the bare skin of her hand resting against the side of his face, so very, _dangerously_ close to his temples. It was then that he noticed something else that was so very, _dangerously_ strange about River - she was a human, that was for certain, but she seemed to have a grasp of telepathic communication as she very deftly projected the sensation of longing and reunion into his thoughts without words or warning.

"Doctor ... please tell me you know who I am ..." she murmured breathlessly when he immediately threw up every mental defense that he could think of against her intrusion and she finally let her hand fall from the side of his face with a defeated, weary expression.

"Who are you ...?" he asked plainly, attempting to school his features into blank curiosity rather than display the true horror that he felt as he gaze defensively from her raised hand to her face and back again.

The hurt that filled her expression then completely baffled him, and the Doctor found that he was being drawn to the mysterious blue diary that River toted around with her as surely as he had been drawn to the call on the psychic paper. However, the mysterious professor absolutely refused to let him so much as look at the small book that she so fiercely protected, and the Doctor could feel his frustrations continuing to build as he desperately tried to puzzle out who this woman from the future was. A woman who, apparently, had a sonic screwdriver with her - and not just _any_ sonic screwdriver, either, but _his_.

All thoughts of trying to uncover the truth of Professor River Song were temporarily abandoned, however, when the Doctor suddenly discovered that he had not, in fact, managed to save Donna from the hungry swarms of vashta nerada that were currently closing in on them from all sides.

"Donna Noble has left the library," the nearest information node alerted him matter-of-factly, using Donna's own face in an attempt to reassure him. "Donna Noble has been saved."

However, the Doctor wasn't reassured in the least as the walking skeletons who had been hijacked by the vashta nerada continued to chase them down the long library hallways and Donna's current state of wellbeing remained a complete and total mystery.

He was even less assured when River suddenly pulled him in and whispered his true name into his ear - a name that only one other person in the entirety of time and space had any right to know, a name that should _never_ be spoken from any other woman's lips, not now, not _ever_.

He could only stare down at River in dumbfounded, horrified shock as she hesitantly asked, "Are we good?"

And no, they absolutely were not anywhere near " _good_ ", but lives were on the line, and the Doctor couldn't stand there frozen and simply staring at the anomalous woman forever, so he did what he always did - he lied and pushed the issue aside to be sorted out later.

"Yeah. Yeah, we're good," he stated breathlessly.

In the end, the Doctor did manage to scrape together a plan to rescue everyone who had been trapped in the library and free the living mind operating as the planet's computer hard drive, but it did have some significant, unfortunate pitfalls. Namely, he was going to have to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. Nothing new, really - though regrettable, considering the fact that he knew he'd never be able to regenerate after such a drain on his energy.

However, he never got the chance to actually carry the thing through before Professor Song's right fist connected hard with the left side of his face and instantly knocked the Doctor out stone cold. His slightly warming opinion of the professor was immediately reconsidered as he finally came to again and realized that the impossible, ridiculous woman planned to sacrifice herself in his place.

"Time can be rewritten!" the Doctor insisted desperately as he strained against his handcuffs (and really - who _was_ this woman, who carried around _handcuffs_?) and attempted to get River to see reason.

"Not those times! Not one line, don't you dare!" she insisted emphatically, refusing to allow him to talk his way out of this one. "It's okay," she assured him, her tone going gentle as she looked down on him with tears in her eyes. "It's okay, it's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me, time and space - you _watch us run_!"

She disappeared before his eyes in a blazing flash of light - gone outside of his reach before the Doctor ever really got the chance to uncover who she was (and, perhaps more importantly, who she was to _him_ ). Trapped as he was by the handcuffs around his left wrist, the Doctor was forced to sit and confront the consequences of his actions until someone finally appeared and set him free from his misery.

He stared hard at the seat that River had occupied for longer than he cared to admit as he allowed himself to wallow in his morose thoughts and ponder why it was that he always had to watch those closest to him die. Even River - who he didn't even rightfully know yet, but who clearly loved him - had laid down her life in his name. Was it even possible to love the Doctor and live?

The thought troubled him far more than he thought that it should, considering the fact that he had quite sworn off such relationships (despite River's claims for the future). But could it really be true that he was doomed to wander the universe for eternity completely and totally alone? Would anyone ever be able to live up to Rose? Would anyone ever even come close? And even if they did, would the Doctor ever be able to bear the entirety of his bruised and battered hearts to them?

It seemed a ridiculous request to make of the universe that seemed quite satisfied to watch him suffer, but the Doctor decided the wouldn't give up hoping regardless. It was what Rose would have done, after all.

\---------- Midnight ----------

The Doctor had always liked words in this new body. Having them all suddenly taken away from him cut him deep and left him feeling more scared than he had been in a very long time. He really had expected to die on that bright, glittering planet of Midnight. He had seen the best and the worst of humans during his 900 years of space and time travel, and he of all people knew what they were capable of. With no voice to plead his case or talk riddles around everyone else, he really thought that perhaps he had finally met his end.

But thankfully, words still managed to save the day in the end, and when the Doctor finally returned to Donna once more he hugged her tight and silently allowed himself to begin the process of releasing the ( _many_ ) mental shields that he had been hiding himself behind ever since he left Bad Wolf Bay. It was strange to suddenly be able to sense an emotion that wasn't his own aching loneliness and heartbreak (though the Doctor was surprised to find that Donna had plenty of that to go around, as well), and he actually let out an audible sigh of relief as he gladly accepted her silent offer of peace and comfort.

When they finally turned to return to the TARDIS once more, the Doctor found that he had to fight to hold himself back and not grab for Donna's hand - his desire to chase after another living person's thoughts and emotions almost overpowering him. He knew that he was probably inviting more trouble than anything by walking around unshielded for the first time in years, but he was simply tired of the silence in his head, which echoed and rang with the emptiness, much like the surface of the planet Midnight. Just like that creature wandering alone out there amongst the diamonds, he craved warmth and companionship and a promise that he didn't have to be alone, if he didn't want to.

He did, however, make a mental note to have a talk with Donna about touch telepathy as soon as possible. He could only imagine the row that would await him if he accidentally picked up on something that she didn't want him to know about. The thought alone was almost enough to scare him back into raising his shields once more as they left the desolation and misery of Midnight behind them.

\---------- Turn Left ----------

The Doctor took them to a crowded alien bazaar next, eager to fill all of his senses with as much noise and light and overstimulation as he could possibly get. Donna happily played along, too - eager to see and taste and try all of the new things that the alien system had to offer her.

The Doctor didn't worry too much when they were inevitably separated - Donna was an adult who could look after herself, after all (she had proven the fact many times throughout their adventures) - but her look of terror when he finally tracked her down again had him instantly concerned, and the hug that bubbled with her elated relief only managed to heighten his confusion.

However, it wasn't until the Doctor examined the dead Time Beetle and Donna began to relay the stories of the strange parallel world that she had experienced that he began to grow truly frightened. He listened in enraptured silence as she told him stories of a mysterious blonde woman with no name and an encroaching darkness that was threatening all of the worlds in existence.

"But she told me ... to warn you," Donna muttered haltingly. "She said, 'two words' ..."

The Doctor had two words, too - two words that Donna's story had instantly sparked back to life and were currently burning in his chest and setting his hearts on fire. Two words that could only ever belong to one other living creature. Two words that were secret, cherished, and sacred above all else.

_Could it possibly be ...?_

"What two words? What were they? What did she say?" he demanded breathlessly.

Donna's eyes were wide and filled with fear as she finally whispered, "Bad Wolf ..."

They weren't the words that he had been expecting, but as the Doctor dashed through the alien marketplace and saw the seven simple letters adorning every solid surface in sight, he realized that they could never have been anything else. Bad Wolf was the one phrase that linked him to Rose - it was a promised reunion even when all hope seemed lost and every other option had tried and failed. Bad Wolf was a bridge - an escape, a lifeline. Bad Wolf was _hope_.

And despite all that had happened and the many times that he had been misled and crushed by it in the past, the Doctor decided to chase after that hope like his life depended on it - knowing full well that this time, it just might.


	7. The Stolen Earth (Part One)

As if the walls of the universe collapsing all around them wasn't bad enough, the Earth suddenly disappeared right out from underneath the TARDIS and left the Doctor and Donna stranded in the middle of space with no bearing whatsoever. Knowing that Rose was out there somewhere and being completely unable to reach her very nearly had the Doctor giving up as he and Donna sat in the TARDIS and stared dejectedly at the console monitor as they watched their options slowly running out around them.

However, that ridiculous sense of hope was instantly rekindled again as Donna's phone began picking up a signal that they were quickly able to lock onto and use to pull themselves into the small bubble of time trapped within the Medusa Cascade. It didn't take long for the Doctor to uncover the subwave network that the people of Earth had set up in an attempt to reach him, either. Seeing the familiar faces of Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane Smith, and Martha Jones was a tremendous relief to him, but he still couldn't seem to find the _one face_ who he needed most to see.

No, instead of reuniting with the long lost love of his lives, the Doctor was forced to stare down the face of one of his oldest and greatest enemies - Davros himself, somehow revived and still in tact after the Time War, and now surrounded by his own personal army of daleks. The Doctor might have paused and mused over the irony of running into the daleks again now after so long a time without them if he wasn't currently so focused on tracing down his lost bondmate from another world. He cut off his transmission with Davros and set the TARDIS's destination for Earth, deciding that he would ponder the hopelessness of their situation and the ruthless perpetuation of the daleks on another day. For now, lives were at stake and his own shot at a future free of misery was on the line.

"Think, Donna," the Doctor insisted as they both stared out across the empty, desolate city streets around them, "when you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?"

"Just ... the darkness is coming," Donna muttered hopelessly, shrugging her shoulders and flashing the Doctor a look of utter defeat.

"Anything else?" he continued to press, desperate for even the tiniest clue that might be able to lead him back to her.

Suddenly, Donna's gaze drifted off to focus on something just past his shoulder and a knowing smile slowly spread over her features. "Why don't you ask her yourself?" she suggest lightly.

The Doctor held his breath as he turned and immediately laid eyes on a young blonde woman standing at the other end of the dark street behind him. She was too far away to make out her features with any degree of clarity, but the Doctor had spent the last two years chasing after ghosts - he knew instantly that this was no mere look-alike or cheap imitation.

_Rose ..._

His mind called out to her without him having to paused and consciously think about it. It was instinct - a gut reaction, a driving, incessant force.

He was ashamed to say that it was she who started running first, as the Doctor found that he was frozen into dumbfounded silence for just a moment too long. However, as soon as he was finally able to get his legs to work again, he was immediately sprinting as fast as he could to meet her.

The Doctor had spent quite a while in this body now, and had had to do an awful lot of running over the past three years, but it wasn't until this moment that he suddenly found himself wishing that his long, skinny legs were just that much longer, needing them to stretch farther and carry him faster than he had ever gone before. He needed to reach her before she disappeared and faded away into the air like a puff of smoke. He needed to touch and feel her to reassure himself that she was _real_ and not simply another figment of his vivid imagination.

The closer that they got to one another, the better the Doctor could make out the details of her face. She was older, though it was impossible to say how much of the age on her features had been put there by actual time, and how much had been put there by the circumstances and the life that she had been forced to live through without him. He didn't miss the over-sized gun that hung at her side, either - the only unwelcome part of the vision from his wildest dreams that was currently standing in front of him. It served as a stark reminder that they were still surrounded by dangers and that he had to fight to protect her from everything that was going on around them, because he _absolutely refused_ to let her slip through his fingers this time ...

However, the Doctor's jolt of protective desire soon fell flat as one of those particular dangers suddenly appeared and instantly intercepted them. Neither of them saw the dalek, considering how intently they were staring at one another, and despite the speed with which they were both running, the creature still managed to just barely graze the Doctor's side with its laser.

Thankfully, Jack showed up just in time and had a gun to rival the size of Rose's. He made quick work of the rogue dalek, but the Doctor didn't get the satisfaction of seeing the thing blow to pieces as he tripped and sank to the asphalt below, his entire body burning with pain. The Doctor silently cursed every single dalek in every dimension that remained in existence as he felt his body struggle against the blast of energy that had already stopped one heart and was quickly working through the rest of his system in an attempt to finish the job.

"I've got you ..." a familiar voice murmured as the Doctor felt his entire world tilt on its axis and go oddly hazy. "I missed you! Look ... it's me!"

He did look, then, though he could barely force himself to believe the proof of his own eyes.

"Rose ..." Her name on his lips after so long of being separated from her was like a sweet melody, and for the man who had always favored words, the Doctor thought that there was never a word more powerful or important as this.

He fought to make his gaze and his running thoughts focus on the beautiful, miraculous gift that lay before him, but there were fingers in his hair and a sharp pain in his gut that both seemed to be luring him to close his eyes and give way to unconsciousness.

She was smiling down at him - or, at least, the Doctor was relatively _sure_ that her smile was real and not just a figment of his imagination - as she leaned in close. The Doctor wanted to run his hands through the blonde hair that swayed before his vision and dry the tears that were building behind those sweet brown eyes, but his extremities had long since gone numb and he wasn't sure if he was even capable of lifting his hands anymore.

"Doctor, stay with me," Rose insisted breathlessly. "Don't die. Oh, please, don't die ...!"

But the Doctor's vision was already going dark around the edges as his consciousness dimmed and the rest of the world and its cares quickly faded around him. The only thing that remained - the only thing that _mattered_ was Rose, and her frightened, whispered words that followed him into a state of fitful unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose are reunited at last! Everything from this point on will be considered an AU, as the story will be going off-script with canon.


	8. The Stolen Earth (Part Two)

The Doctor was burning - but instead of being consumed in flames and fire, he found that it was more like being cast into a pit of darkness. There were voices echoing all around him, but he couldn't focus enough to make any sort of sense out of them. As always, it seemed that he was surrounded by words and words and words and so little _time_ ... 

There was only a single, guiding light through it all, though she remained impossibly, terribly far away. "You can't ..." she insisted. Her voice was a desperate, choked whisper, but the authority and the command behind her words were impossible to ignore. "Not now, I came all this way ..."

The Doctor blinked, but his eyes remained completely unseeing to the world around him. His precious, guiding light flared brighter though, ushering him forward as the darkness around him faded away in defeat and was suddenly drowned out by her shining, golden glow.

"It's starting ..."

He wasn't sure where this new voice came from - in fact, he wasn't even entirely sure if it was real, but he felt the truth behind the words immediately. Something was swelling up inside of him, bursting with energy and preparing to explode and destroy everything in its wake. He couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted to - and _oh_ , he _did_. The Doctor didn't want this - didn't want to change, didn't want to die, didn't want to put Rose through this all over again ...

"Here we go! Good luck, Doctor!"

"Oh, no, you don't ..."

The light flared again and finally _there_ was the flame and fire that he had been missing.

 _I'm sorry, so sorry, it's too late, I ran out of time again, always, always too slow, too late ..._ his mind cried out desperately as the burning heat of regeneration energy surged through every fiber of his being and threatened to rewrite him completely.

 _You can't - don't you dare._ This voice the Doctor was almost _certain_ had not been spoke out loud, but he knew that it wasn't coming from his own mind, either. _Not this time ..._ it insisted.

But despite the obstinate tone of the stranger's voice ( _was_ it a stranger? It sounded so hauntingly, _achingly_ familiar ...), fate refused to be altered as timelines tightened around the Doctor's neck like a noose and began to choke him.

 _I'm regenerating ..._ the Doctor cried out in warning as his mind desperately attempted to hang onto his last few rational thoughts before the detonator that was his regeneration could tick down to zero.

This thought seemed to prompt a vicious, wordless growl that vibrated in the back of the Doctor's head and transformed into a scream that was oddly reminiscent of an eerie, echoing wolf howl. It was so loud that it very nearly threatened to split his skull in two with the force of it, but in a sudden flash of golden light, all of the pain and fire and screams were gone and the Doctor was suddenly in his right mind again.

He blinked hard as he attempted to make sense of the vision that was now standing before him - a familiar blonde figure glowing so brightly that he had to squint in order to be able to see her. Jack and Donna were standing just beyond her, their arms thrown around each other in fear as they stared on at the spectacle before them in wide-eyed horror.

The Doctor opened his mouth to begin to ask what was going on, when the glowing light suddenly seemed to dissipate and slowly fade into the skin of the woman before him. He gasped so hard that he nearly choked as he was instantly able to make out the wide, dazed eyes of Rose Tyler.

"Rose!" he breathed as he rushed forward and caught her under her arms before her knees could give out and send her crashing into the TARDIS grating below her feet. "Rose, what have you done?" he demanded as he quickly looked over her limp, faintly-glowing features.

 _Doctor ...?_ It took him a moment to realize that her voice was coming from inside of his own head, and not directly from her lips. He tightened the grip that he had around her waist as he desperately felt out the edges of her consciousness in his mind. It seemed that she had somehow managed to reestablish their telepathic connection sometime during his fit of unconsciousness.

However, the Doctor had very little time to celebrate the return of his bondmate and the pleasant, full feeling that she had returned to his head and his hearts as he was quickly reminded of the fact that he was meant to be _dead_.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Donna demanded, instantly breaking the tense silence that had fallen throughout the TARDIS console room as she took the initiative to voice the question that they were all thinking.

"Rose," the Doctor called out again, completely ignoring his friend as he brought a hand up to his bondmate's cheek and tentatively let his fingers run across the lingering glow that was still glittering off of her pale skin. "Rose, can you hear me?" Her wide brown eyes were blinking unseeingly up at the ceiling above him and her lips were slightly parted as she quietly gasped for breath.

_Burning, burning, flame and ash, destroying, rewriting, creating, enduring, forever and ever and ever into eternity, time and space and running with no end ..._

_Hush, love,_ the Doctor silently soothed her racing thoughts as he closed his eyes and leaned down to press his forehead to hers. _Come back to me. You came all this way, don't leave me now._

"Doctor ..." This time, her words were spoken out loud, though they remained little more than a rough whisper between them. The Doctor leaned back slightly to get a better look at her and was pleased to note that her eyes looked slightly less clouded as she blinked and focused back on him once more. "Doctor, what happened?"

"Are you alright?" he asked in breathless concern as she attempted to sit up and immediately winced in pain and fell back into the supportive embrace of his arms once more.

"Seriously, though, is no one going to explain what that was?" Donna insisted loudly from the other side of the room. When the Doctor finally spared her a glance, he could see that she had relinquished her desperate hold on Jack and was currently glaring daggers in the Doctor's direction, her hands placed stubbornly on her hips as she awaited an explanation. The rogue American time agent next to her wasn't looking at him at all, though - he was staring at Rose with wide, apprehensive eyes, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Doctor!" Rose cried suddenly, as though she had just realized that he was there. Her hands were immediately framing either side of his face as her surprised joy rushed like warm water through his thoughts. "You ... look the same!" she breathed in wondrous disbelief. "You didn't change! You're still you!"

"Right ..." the Doctor muttered curiously as he glanced quickly down at his old brown suit and then met Rose's warm, pleased gaze once more. "Still me. Any idea how that happened?" he asked her pointedly. "I mean, not to be morbid or anything, but the last thing I remember, I was dying ..."

"I stopped it!" Rose exclaimed eagerly. However, as soon as the words sprang from her mouth, her expression began to fall and her eyes took on a distant look as she furrowed her brows in thought. "I can't believe it worked ... I actually stopped it ..."

"And ... _how_ did you do that?" the Doctor prompted her, his tone pitching up in concern as he watched her face go through at least five different expressions in the span of about three seconds. Through their bond, he could feel her thoughts racing in a way that he had never experienced before, and he immediately began to grow wary.

 _It worked, it worked, it worked!_ her thoughts sang out happily in his head, completely heedless of his tentative nervousness. _Waited so long for you, for this, for_ us. _Watched and waited and now it's finally here at last ..._

 _What is it?_ What's _here?_ the Doctor asked insistently as he attempted to reach out and calm her turbulent, frenzied thoughts.

Rose flashed him a wide, manic grin that he wasn't entirely accustomed to seeing on her soft features as her thoughts answered eagerly, _Eternity!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to leave on yet another cliff-hanger, but this scene ended up being longer than I planned and a lot is happening in my life at the moment, so I don't have time to post the whole thing all at once. But rest assured that the Doctor is not dead and neither is Rose! The full explanation of what happened will be coming soon!


	9. Journey's End (Part One)

"I did it!" Rose cried again in triumph as she flashed another wild smile in the Doctor's direction and let her eyes roam eagerly over his features.

"Did ... _what_ , exactly?" the Doctor asked in hesitant concern as he warily watched her odd, almost-manic expression.

"You were regenerating, but I kissed you and took that regeneration energy into myself, and I saved your life!" Rose explained simply. Before the Doctor could even find the time to process her words, she let out a loud bark of laughter as she suddenly released her hold on him and jumped animatedly to her feet. He watched her in stunned silence from his position on the floor as she quickly glanced over herself, as though taking stock and making sure that everything was still in place.

"You did _what_?" the Doctor repeated, his tone somehow managing to go even higher as he gazed up at her in wide-eyed shock.

"But ... that's not possible," Jack agreed slowly from where he was still watching them on the other side of the room. Then, screwing up his eyebrows in confusion, he cast the Doctor a curious look as he added, "Is it ...?"

"Normally, no," Rose informed them both matter-of-factly as she dusted the palms of her hands against her thighs, seemingly satisfied that everything was in order. "But, you see, this was no ordinary regeneration. And I'm _certainly_ no ordinary human."

"Well, you've got _that_ right," Donna snapped irritably as she continued to glare between them all. "Is _anyone_ going to properly explain what just happened?"

Rose groaned and rolled her eyes as she dramatically threw her hands in the Doctor's direction and explained exasperatedly, "He was regenerating, right? All that energy burning up his body from the inside out." Rose gestured pointedly towards herself and continued, " _I_ took that energy into my own body to save him. Well, I let it do its job and heal him first, of course, but then I took all of the remaining stuff that would have changed his face and made him into a new person, and let it burn itself out in me."

"But ... Rose, you can't do that!" the Doctor insisted, jumping to his feet and grabbing her roughly by the arms to force her to turn and look at him. "The regeneration energy of a Time Lord is enough to kill a human!"

"Oh, you really are slow, aren't you?" Rose muttered sarcastically under her breath as she rolled her eyes hard once more and flashed him a withering look. "Were you not listening at _all_ when I _just said_ I'm no ordinary human?"

"What are you talking about?" the Doctor demanded, furrowing his brows at her in confusion as he desperately tried to sort out what was happening right before his eyes.

"Oh, come on, Doctor. Surely you've sensed it before," Rose insisted teasingly. "I know you have! Things have been different ever since the Bad Wolf."

The familiar name struck a chord of fear in the Doctor as he thought back to that time all those years ago on the Game Station when he had been forced to watch Rose turn into something even greater and more powerful than time itself. He had told himself that that chapter of their lives was over - the energy was gone, he was a new man, and Rose was back to her normal self once more. But was that entirely true?

"The time vortex rewrote some key aspects of my biology," Rose informed him with a small, dismissive shrug, "courtesy of the Bad Wolf, of course. She prepared me - put everything in place. All I needed was a zap of regeneration energy to jump start the system and get it all up and running."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor demanded, his grip on Rose's arms tightening as the frightening implication of her words began to sink in. "What did she change? What did that energy do? Rose, you could have _died_!"

"No, Doctor," she insisted simply. "I was never going to die. It was always meant to happen this way. Everything we've been through, everything we've done, all of it has been leading up to this."

The easy declaration made a shiver run down the Doctor's spine as he thought back on all that he and Rose had experienced, both together and apart. He had been able to sense their timelines intertwining ever since he had first laid eyes on her, though he had forced himself to ignore and deny that fact for a very long time. Was it really possible that there had been a plan all along? Had something been pulling them together right from the very beginning? The thought made the Doctor nervous and wary - he had never liked the idea of inevitability, after all, and he found that he liked it even less when it concerned the one woman who he cared for the most in the entire universe.

"That energy _should_ have killed you ..." the Doctor continued to murmur in quiet denial, his brows furrowing in consideration as he took a half-step back and looked Rose over from head to toe once more. The unrestrained regeneration energy should have burned anyone and anything that it touched, including himself, and yet here she was - somehow even brighter and more energetic than ever as she smiled widely up at him. If he didn't know any better, he would almost say it was as if ...

 _Yes,_ Rose's voice whispered in silent confirmation as realization slowly dawned on him in waves.

"It didn't kill me, Doctor," she assured him out loud, her voice softening as she looked up at him with a small, consoling smile. "Just changed me, like it was going to change you."

"But that would mean ..."

They both took a step towards one another at the exact same moment. Rose wrapped her hands around the Doctor's as he wordlessly raised his left hand towards her and they both inhaled sharply as she drew him forward and allowed his palm to press solidly against the right side of her chest, where a new, inhuman heart was now beating wildly.

It was entirely impossible and absolutely ridiculous, but the Doctor couldn't exactly deny the proof of his own senses - not now, when he was feeling and hearing and seeing so vividly for the first time in years. The colorless blur that had taken over his life ever since Rose had been torn away from him had been completely washed away and transformed in a flash of golden light, and what stood in its place was almost too perfect for words.

She wasn't a true Time Lord, of course - not by far. She was just a mere shadow - an echo, like Jenny had been - but she was still, as she said, _so_ much more than an ordinary human. And, if her words were to be believed, this plan had been set in motion a long time ago, simply waiting for events to transpire to bring them all _here_.

The Doctor couldn't have stopped the wide grin that spread across his features then even if he had tried, and it only grew as Rose met his gaze and matched his eager expression exactly. They were smiling at each other like two kids on Christmas, completely oblivious to the world around them as the reality of their current situation suddenly made itself clear. 

The Doctor still didn't quite know the full extent of Rose's new, impossible existence, but the implications were vast, and every single one of them promised a lifetime (possibly even _multiple_ lifetimes if the Doctor was very, very lucky) of happiness.

Their giddy elation was cut short, however, as the TARDIS gave a sudden lurch and every light in the console room instantly cut off. The Doctor didn't have time to even attempt to test the dead controls before Rose's excited smile went slack and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as her knees went out and she slumped forward into him, her thoughts going quiet inside of his head as she quickly passed out into unconsciousness.

"Rose?" the Doctor called out in concern as he carefully hefted her weight back to the solid surface of the TARDIS grating below. "What's going on?" he demanded as he ran his gaze around the edges of the dim room and glared up at the dead time rotor.

"Think we've got company ..." Jack muttered darkly as he stepped forward and examined the ship's unresponsive controls.

"Leave it to _you_ to forget about the dalek invasion," Donna huffed irritably, though her expression was kind and full of patient understanding as she stepped forward and kneeled over Rose's unconscious body. "She'll be alright, Doctor," she assured him, her tone far more convincing than the haunted look of fear in her eyes. "Let's focus on getting the rest of us out of this alive, yeah?"

And, as per usual, the Doctor found that he couldn't argue with his brilliant best friend, so he did what he always did best in times of peril, and instantly jumped back into action.


	10. Journey's End (Part Two)

When the TARDIS doors suddenly slammed shut, trapping Donna and Rose on the inside and locking the Doctor, Jack, and a whole horde of daleks on the opposite side, all of the excitement and elation that the Doctor had been feeling only a few moments ago instantly evaporated. The sound of Donna's frenzied cries for help and the still, unresponsive mind of the Doctor's bondmate in the back of his head didn't help matters, either.

When the familiar blue box suddenly disappeared into the floor and the daleks explained that the Doctor's ship and his friends were to be incinerated, the crushing wave of fear that swept through the Doctor's mind was almost enough to completely undo him. However, he was only left in frozen terror for two minutes and six-point-one seconds exactly before the telepathic connection in his mind came roaring back to life in a flash of blazing golden light again.

 _Rose ...?_ the Doctor called out tentatively as he watched the screen that the daleks had brought up for him that displayed his ship being surrounded by the inferno that burned at the heart of the dalek crucible.

 _Oh, yes!_ Rose replied eagerly, her excited energy bubbling across their connection and instantly reminding the Doctor how to breathe normally again.

 _Are you alright ...?_ he asked nervously.

 _Oh, yes!_ she repeated, just as excitedly as before. _Be up in two ticks, dear. Don't do anything fun without me._

Her teasing command was easy to obey as the Doctor found himself quickly imprisoned at the bottom layer of what the daleks referred to as "the vault" with nothing and no one but old Davros to talk to. Jack had been shot and carted away upon their arrival to the crucible, but the Doctor had traveled with the man long enough to know not to waste his time and effort worrying about him.

Instead, he spent his remaining time running down the clock and gathering information while he waited impatiently to hear from Rose again. However, all attempts at playing indifferent and bored were quickly abandoned as the Doctor realized the true extent of Davros and the daleks' plan. They had snatched twenty-seven planets out of space and time and set them up in the Medusa Cascade to harmonize with one another for a single, deadly purpose - to destroy all matter in existence at its atomic level.

The Doctor found himself frozen in place yet again as he struggled to pull together some sort of plan, but his calculations were interrupted by first Martha and UNIT, and then Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey Smith, and (of _all_ the people in creation, the absolute _last_ person he had expected to see) Jackie Tyler. All five of them stared down at Davros with matching expressions of hatred as they threatened to take down everyone and everything with them in an attempt to stop the alien incursion.

"And the prophecy unfolds ..." Davros muttered ominously.

"The Doctor's soul is revealed!" dalek Caan agreed excitedly. "See him! See the _heart_ of him!"

"The man who _abhors_ violence, never carrying a gun," Davros continued cruelly. "But this is the truth, Doctor - you take ordinary people and you fashion _them_ into weapons. Behold your Children of Time: transformed into _murderers_. I made the daleks, Doctor - you made this."

"They're trying to help," the Doctor insisted, though all of the fire and rage had gone out of his tone as he scowled down at the floor and tried very hard to ignore the glaring truth that lay before him.

 _This_ was not his intention, no matter what else Davros tried to say - _this_ was not what the Doctor would _ever_ want. He didn't want to see his friends turn violent and desperate out of fear and hatred. He didn't want to see the earth or any of the other twenty-six planets lined up outside destroyed for no reason other than the daleks' crazed sense of pride. He _did_ , however, want to see the entire blood crucible and all of the daleks within it burn - he wanted that very, _very_ much.

 _Hey!_ The sudden, sharp pull against his thoughts was like a slap to the face as the Doctor's bondmate instantly sensed his darkening demeanor and decided to intervene. _I thought I told you not to do anything fun without me?_

The Doctor didn't get a chance to ask Rose what she meant before the daleks transported Martha, Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey, and Jackie directly into the vault of the crucible and then a familiar whirring sound began to fill the air. They all turned in unison to stare in wide-eyed wonder as the blue box slowly materialized before them.

"Impossible!" Davros decreed.

"Brilliant!" Jack countered as the TARDIS suddenly came to a halt and the doors swung open to reveal a silhouette backlit in golden light. The image was simply too similar to that time all those years ago on the Game Station, though this time there was no underlying sensation of fear to sour the fresh wave of hope that the Doctor's golden girl brought with her wherever she went.

"Davros!" Rose called out dramatically as she stepped from the TARDIS and leveled her confident smirk on the withered old man before her. "We meet at last. Heard all the stories, you know ... and obviously I've met the kids. Funny little things, the daleks. Did you ever hear back from the Emperor, by the way? Did he ever mention a certain _Bad Wolf_ to you?"

Davros didn't bother responding to any of her threatening, leading questions. He simply sneered once more and raised his right hand, his finger pointing in her direction as bright lines of electricity began to crackle and pulse around him.

Trapped as he was within the containment field that the daleks had forced him into, the Doctor could do nothing but stand and watch as a single line of what looked like lightning shot from Davros's hand and arched directly into Rose's chest, instantly knocking her off of her feet and sending her flying backwards towards the TARDIS, where Donna had suddenly appeared. The fiery red-head looked more shaken than the Doctor had seen her yet, and she cried out loud in fright as Rose's body suddenly landed in a heap at her feet.

Despite the fact that the Doctor already knew what was going to happen next, he still felt a sharp stab of terror as he watched the woman who he loved flying across the room and lying motionless on the ground outside of his reach. His mind stretched towards Rose's on instinct, and her answer was a bright flare of golden light as her head suddenly shot up and she leveled a wild, deadly smile in Davros's direction.

"Oh, that's the stuff! Spark to the synapses, just what I needed!" she gasped as she suddenly reanimated and shot back to her feet once more. "Come on, now, Davros, you've been around _this_ one long enough," Rose muttered sarcastically, casually throwing a thumb over her shoulder in the Doctor's direction, "surely someone's told you by now not to shoot a girl while she's regenerating."

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Donna groaned as she reached out and warily dusted off the back of Rose's blue leather jacket for her. "You're just as barmy as he is!"

Rose flashed a cheeky wink at them all before darting to the control panel that stood just to her right and began frantically flipping switches and pressing buttons. "Donna! Time to put those temping skills to work!" she called out eagerly as her brow furrowed down at the controls in concentration. "How many words do you think you can type in a minute?"


	11. Journey's End (Part Three)

They all ended up escaping with their lives only because of Rose's brilliance and Donna's nimble fingers. In fact, the Doctor found that he really didn't need to do much work at all when he had his two fantastic girls at his side working with him, and with the added help of Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey, and Jackie ( _yes_ , even _her_ ), Davros and the daleks really never even really stood a chance to begin with.

They ended up leaving the whole horde of daleks spinning helplessly and completely disabled after Rose, Donna, and the Doctor sent the twenty-six planets in the Medusa Cascade home and then prepared to handle the remaining twenty-seventh themselves. Even though the Doctor may have preferred a more fiery end to the remaining ship full of hateful robots, he had Rose in his head reminding him of just how far he had come since the Time War, and he found that he simply couldn't muster up the same level of hate and anger that he had had all those years ago when they had first come across a broken down dalek buried underneath the sands of the Nevada desert.

Instead, the Doctor merely extended one last half-hearted attempt to save Davros, but when his offer of mercy was vehemently and predictably denied, he gladly shut his TARDIS doors on the whole bloody crucible and set it resolutely behind them.

Rose didn't have any additional words of comfort or reassurance for him, in the end - though the Doctor didn't really think that there were enough words in the universe that could heal the complexities of the Time War and all of the damage and destruction that it continued to leave behind, even now. But his brilliant, beautiful girl still managed to overshadow any lingering despair and anger with her feelings of love and peace, which she projected into his mind until there wasn't room for anything else.

With Rose filling his thoughts and the rest of his companions filling his TARDIS, the Doctor's hearts were more full than they had been in a very, very long time - though, of course, the knowledge that goodbyes were inevitably around the corner did dampen the mood somewhat.

Sarah Jane went first - she was eager to get back to her son (a story that she still didn't bother to tell him completely, though the Doctor suspected that he would find out the details sooner or later). She was followed close behind by Jack and Martha - then, to all of their surprise, Mickey.

"There's nothing in that world for me, now," the young man proclaimed decidedly as he left Pete's World behind him and set his sights on the new world that lay before him, "certainly not Rose."

The Doctor shared a weighted look with the young man who he had spent an inordinate amount of time being jealous over in the past. It all seemed like such a long time ago, now - even though he knew that, in reality, it had only been a few years. Mickey had grown up and changed so much from that frightened kid cowering in a back alley just because a couple of plastic dummies were attempting to threaten his life. The Doctor still couldn't admit it out loud - not even now - but there was no denying the fact that he was proud of him.

When he finally ran off after Jack and Martha, the Doctor knew that he wouldn't have to worry about Rickey the Idiot anymore - he already had all of the resources that he would need in order to make a successful life for himself all over again. However, the rest of the Tyler family was another story.

"Time for one last trip," the Doctor announced as he swaggered back into his TARDIS with an air of easy confidence that he didn't really feel at all. Rose and Jackie didn't meet his eyes as he moved back to the TARDIS monitor, but he caught Donna's look of pained sympathy that did nothing at all to improve his mood as he declared resolutely, "Dårlig Ulv Stranden."

\--------------------

"Oh, fat lot of good this is. Back of beyond - bloody _Norway_?" Jackie moaned as soon as the TARDIS touched down again and they all stepped out onto that cold, cloudy beach once more.

"Couldn't you have gotten her a _little_ bit closer to home?" Rose agreed, sighing heavily as she scowled out at the horizon. The Doctor could sense that she was just as wary at seeing this place again as he was. There were simply too many bad memories of half-formed sentences and rushed goodbyes.

"Do you ... have someone who you could call?" the Doctor asked awkwardly, not quite sure how to phrase his question without sounding completely ridiculous as he subtly attempted to learn as much as he could about the life that Rose had made for herself here without him.

"Mum could always phone Dad," she replied with an off-handed shrug. "How long can we stay? I'd like to make sure that she's alright before we head back."

When the Doctor's only reply was a beat of unsure silence as he silently gauged her expression and thoughts, Rose rolled her eyes dramatically and added, "I mean, _of course_ I'm coming back with you. What, did you think you were just going to drop me off on this sad old beach again and leave me behind forever?"

"I thought ..." the Doctor tried weakly, not really sure how to explain the many different doubts, fears, and anxieties that he was feeling in that moment.

"Oh, no. You're not getting rid of me that easily," Rose cut him off simply. "I just ... need to explain to her everything that's happened." She paused for a moment as she tore her gaze away from him and glanced at her mother over her shoulder, her expression falling as she silently prepared herself for the last, momentous goodbye that still lay ahead of them.

 _Do you want me to come with you ...?_ the Doctor asked hesitantly, his hands shoved into his pockets as he shifted his weight awkwardly in the sand. He had always been bad at the goodbyes, and he had always been bad with his companions' mothers. He suspected that those two negatives wouldn't exactly cancel each other out - _especially_ when it came to _Jackie Tyler_.

But Rose's smile was confident and infection as she met his gaze and slowly nodded in assent and gratitude. "Might want to wait a minute, though," she suggested blithely as she moved to follow after her mother. "Probably don't want to be within slapping-distance if her first reaction isn't exactly ideal."

\--------------------

However, Rose needn't have worried - her goodbye to her mother was heartfelt and satisfying, leaving absolutely no loose ends like the Doctor was notoriously known for doing. He and Rose were able to explain quite clearly that Rose's lifespan now far exceeded her mother's, and that she really would be safer and happier in a place where she wouldn't constantly be having to explain to people why she wasn't aging. Jackie even took the "Bad-Wolf-leading-them-all-to-this-point-and-changing-Rose's-body-specifically-for-him" part better than he had expected.

"Always knew it would come to this, one way or another," she sighed ruefully through her tears. "From the first moment you stepped into that bloody box with him, I knew I'd never get you back completely."

"It's better this way, Mum," Rose insisted gently, blinking through her own watery eyes. "You don't need me anymore. You've got Dad and Tony and everything you could ever want here. You'll all have a long, happy, normal life without me."

"I'll always need you, Rose," Jackie muttered, bringing her daughter into a crushing hug before they parted ways for the last time. "But _you_ need _him_ \- and we all know how he's completely rubbish without you. So you go, and you live the life you've always wanted. Just know that I love you - no matter how far you go or how long you travel, just know that, Rose. Know that I love you."

The Doctor's hearts broke in sympathy for his bondmate when they finally turned their backs on Pete's World for the last time, but he took comfort in the fact that Rose was able to say goodbye to her mother in the end, and he was pleased to find that she didn't have a single ounce of lingering regret left in her as he fired up the TARDIS engines and set their course back for their home universe.

However, as per usual, Donna couldn't let the quite, reflective moment last, and the three of them were left standing in silence for only thirteen seconds before she piped up sarcastically, "Well, there's at least _one_ person who's still fully human on board, and she is honestly very, _very_ tired. do you think I can trust you two not to go running off into any explosions for a few hours while I take a quick kip?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied gently at the same time that Rose grinned and teased, "No promises."

Donna heaved a weary sigh as she glared at the two of them, but she didn't offer any more warnings or advice before shuffling off deeper into the TARDIS in the direction of her room.

"Speaking of explosions ..." the Doctor muttered as casually as he could while flashing an assessing gaze in Rose's direction out of the corner of his eye.

"Yes, yes, I know ..." Rose sighed dramatically as she rolled her eyes at him with a long-suffering expression. It seemed that she knew without him having to tell her that he was still intensely curious about her new state of being and was eager to dissect the issue down to its molecular roots as soon as possible.

"I'll meet you in the infirmary," Rose muttered as she ran the tips of her fingers over the Doctor's arm on her way past him before following Donna's path deeper into the TARDIS. He didn't miss the sudden exhausted slump of her shoulders as she went, but before the Doctor could even attempt to ask her what was wrong, she tugged teasingly against his thoughts and quickly assured him that she was fine.

 _Don't keep me waiting,_ she reminded him as soon as they were out of ear-shot from one another. _It's been two years and we have a lot of catching up to do ..._


	12. A New Journey

"So, Doctor, am I going to make it?" Rose asked teasingly as the Doctor finally finished the last of his tests and shut down the final results monitor with a small sigh.

He huffed a small breath of laughter at Rose's attempt at levity, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and his thoughts remained largely unamused as he pointedly reminded her over their bond of just how often and how close she had come to death over the past few days.

"How are you feeling?" he asked in an awkward attempt to dodge her deep look of concern as well as his own lingering doubts.

"I'm fine now, just tired," Rose replied easily, shrugging dismissively as she added, "I think most of the regeneration energy has dissipated now. I'm feeling a bit more ..."

"Stable ...?" the Doctor supplied helpfully.

"I was going to say, 'a bit more like my usual self'," Rose replied wryly, "but then I remembered that I don't even really know who that _is_ anymore."

"You're still you, Rose," the Doctor assured her gently. "Just like I'm still me. Regeneration doesn't change that." In fact, he quietly suspected that there wasn't a single power in all of creation that had the power and ability to change his beautiful, brilliant Rose. No matter where they went or what he put her through, she was the one, single constant that never seemed to change.

"New, new Rose," she quipped lightly as she carefully searched his quietly brooding expression.

This time, the Doctor was able to match her rueful smile almost exactly as he cautiously stepped closer to where she still sat on the examination table and slowly lifted his hands in silent question.

She cocked an amused eyebrow at him in answer, but silently urged him forward through their bond, her eyes slipping shut as she quietly allowed his fingers to ghost over her temples.

Both of their breaths caught at the exact same moment as the connection between them flared and sparked, their minds and hearts both echoing the same sensation of relief at finally being reunited once more. The Doctor took his time as he carefully scanned through her mind, looking for even the smallest abnormality or even the faintest hint that something might be wrong. But there was simply no denying the fact that this was _Rose_ \- _his_ Rose, whole and healthy and finally returned to him at last (and, with an extra added heart, no less).

 _You scared me today,_ the Doctor murmured quietly, silently musing over his memory of the bright golden glow that had surrounded Rose when she had taken his regeneration energy from him and the wild, crazed look that had been in her eyes ever since.

 _The energy has settled now,_ Rose reassured him softly once more, leaning forward slightly so that her forehead could rest gently against his. _I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to scare you._

Through their connection, the Doctor could now feel her exhaustion as his own, and he was filled with the conflicting desire to collapse under the sheer weight of her weariness, and the compulsive need to pick her up and carry her forcefully back to her bed ( _their_ bed - the one that he had been steadfastly avoiding for the past two years without her) where she rightfully belonged.

 _You're_ sure _you're okay?_ the Doctor continued to insist as he moved to press his lips against the crown of her head and let his fingers fall away from her temples to comb gently through her hair instead.

 _Why don't you tell me?_ Rose reminded him pointedly. "What did the test results say?"

Her voice was so small and timid compared to the boisterous, dramatic displays that she had been putting on ever since she had stopped his regeneration energy from taking over and changing his face. Her sudden hesitation made the Doctor immediately nervous as he leaned back slightly so that he could silently gauge her expression.

"Everything's fine. All readings are normal," the Doctor assured her steadily. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he amended, "Well, as normal as they can be for a half-human Time Lord."

"So ... it really worked?" Rose asked quietly, her wide brown eyes searching his expression and her mind desperately reaching for his as she tried to feel out the truth behind his words.

The Doctor could only smile back at her in response as he silently confirmed the fact for her once more and Rose slowly began to realize that the "forever" that she had promised him oh, so long ago was actually beginning to become a reality. He hesitated for only a moment as he considered the fact that maybe she would regret that promise, now that she could actually be expected to own up to it, but the Doctor needn't have doubted his fantastic, marvelous bondmate as she eagerly threw her arms around his neck in a crushing hug and filled his mind with her elated joy.

As the Doctor eagerly reciprocated her hug and pulled her as close to him as he could get her, he could feel her unsteadily attempting to match the strange new rhythm of her hearts to his, which was made even more difficult when he leaned down and pressed his lips to the side of her neck, which made her pulse spike and trip unevenly.

 _Two hearts,_ she mused silently as her body gently shook in breathless laughter. _This is weird ..._

 _Two hearts is nothing, love,_ the Doctor reminded her teasingly. _Especially not when you've had three all along._

Rose offered him a sense of confusion in response as she regretfully loosened her grip around his neck and allowed him to step back just far enough so that he could greedily rake his eyes over the familiar features that he had thought that he would never be allowed to see ever again.

The Doctor knew that he was grinning like the silly, old, besotted fool that he was, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care as he reached up and placed his hands over hers, sliding them slowly down the front of his chest until her palms rested over either one of his hearts.

 _They've been yours all along, Rose,_ he stated simply. _Surely you know that?_

When he released her hands, her fingers instantly fisted around the lapels of his jacket, and he didn't resist her in the least as she silently urged him closer once more. He forced himself to pause only long enough to utter those words that he had kept locked up tight and sealed away just for her over the past two years. The words that always seemed to be cut off by time and circumstance. The words that were always pushed aside until it was too late to say them.

But now, with eternity stretched out on an endless road before them, the Doctor found that he didn't have to worry about any ticking clocks or looming disasters. In fact, he had all the time in the world to whisper those five critically important words against Rose Tyler's lips and make sure that she never doubted for even a second the deep sincerity that lay behind them.

"Rose Tyler, I love you."

"Took you long enough," she murmured as she leaned in and pressed the line of her smile against his lips in a deep, searing kiss.

The Doctor found that he could do nothing but groan in silent agreement as he kissed her back with equal fervor and continued to fill her mind with those five special words that had gone unspoken for far too long. He carefully timed them out in a rhythm to match the new four-beated pulse of their combined hearts and let it sing through her thoughts like an endless melody as they relaxed against one another and took their time in relearning the shape and feel and taste of the other person.

For the first time in his long, long life, the Doctor wasn't in a hurry. He didn't need to run or find a distraction from the hurt and pain that came hand-in-hand with being an ageless, timeless creature. In fact, he suspected that with Rose back at his side and now sharing the weight of eternity with him, the Doctor could be quite content to go on for at least a few more millennia without fearing the future or worrying about the past.

In fact, when it came to Rose Tyler, the Doctor suspected that _eternity_ could never be quite enough time, but he was determined to hang on to her for as long as he could, anyway. Even if they only had a few more years together - even if they only had the next few seconds - he would be content, and he would make sure that she knew the truth that had been haunting him from the very first moment that he met her: _I love you, I love you, I love you ..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to everyone who has bookmarked or subscribed to this series as well as all of the kudos and comments that have been left on this work. Your support means more to me than I could ever say, and you have made the experience of sharing my work here so enjoyable. I'm so pleased to have had the opportunity to share this story with you, and I hope that you all have a fantastic, brilliant day!


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